The Damned and the Lonely
by Sabina V. Sinistra
Summary: She was innocent and gifted, yet life had made her cynic and aloof. He was powerful and caring, yet Destiny had turned him into a cold, ruthless monarch. He was the Damned, she was the Lonely and, one day, Fate and a careless wish brought them together...
1. Prologue: Crossing Paths

The Damned and the Lonely

  
Prologue: Crossing Paths:

It was raining... It had been raining all week, and people hardly paid attention to that little detail. They had grown accustomed to dull grey mornings and never seeing the sun after a couple of days. A bunch of kids, probable members of some punk, new-age gang for their looks and weird hairstyles, were showing off their new tattoo's and stickers that they had put on their skate-boards. Some meters, away outside a little grocery store five women, all looking like the typical housewife of America's typical family, were whispering in hushed tones. They gossiped about their neighbours and their strange behaviour: about the lady of the 5 C who was unmarried and with a child on the way, about the old man of the 7 A whose son was in prison and his grandson had yet again ended up in the Reformatory and about the teenager girl from the 1 B who dressed like a slut and had five boyfriends, while every boy in the building wanted to bed her...

Near them there was a newly-wed couple, too in-love to notice anyone but the two of them. They were holding hands and smiling goofily, their eyes locked and nearly bumping into one of the women outside the grocery store. Those people, all on the same street, seemed so very different and yet, they all had something in common: they didn't notice the girl, holding a grey umbrella above her head, walking briskly down the street. 

She was petit and nobody seemed to realize she was there at all. She walked swiftly past the groups of people, her gaze fixed on the floor, a bunch of books pressed to her chest like a protective shield. She was wearing a school uniform, the kind that seemed to belong to a Catholic School for Girls only. It consisted on a white shirt with short sleeves and the school emblem sewed over a pocket, a plaited burgundy skirt and a matching blazer, that was by now soaking wet because, as the umbrella was so tiny, the girl was covering her backpack and the books she had in her hands with it, living her body exposed to the heavy rain that fell mercilessly, yet the girl didn't seem to mind. 

She entered an old-looking, dark shop, and antique shop, that was dimly illuminated by some alcohol lamps placed in strategic places. There was dust and cobwebs everywhere except for the bookshelves, that where impeccable. Old, leather-bounded books were perfectly aligned, some of them looking as good as knew and others showing signs of the passing of time, their pages yellow and the leather worn-out. There was a scent of wildflowers and of a pine forest after a storm, so indescribable that it left you wondering. The girl seemed to transform there. On the street she couldn't catch anyone's eye but, when she was on safe ground, she lifted her gaze and her ice-blue eyes sparkled, seeming to glow with a light unknown. That glow disappeared when she blinked, but it had been there... It had meant something. 

There was an old man behind the counter of the shop. He had a grey mane of hair that made people think about Albert Einstein. His eyes were as green as a forest and he had a smile on his face. He seemed friendly but a little worried. However the instant he saw the girl, his spirits brightened.

"Augustine!" he cried happily "Finally some intelligent mind to talk to!" he exclaimed with a heavy Scottish accent. The girl arched and eyebrow and chuckled softly. 

"You are too hard on your other customers, Mr. McAllen" she replied shaking her head, while the older man studied her carefully: she was a girl full of contrasts. 

She was petit, barely 5'3 and weighted eighty-four pounds, something that didn't fail to shock every single person and made some motherly woman look at her and say: 'Dear, you are way too thin! You ought to eat some more!' Her eyes were way too big and perfectly rounded. Some said she looked like a pixie, with those deep ice-blue eyes that sometimes managed to scare people out of their wits, it they had any, of course. Although she was from Argentina, she didn't look at all like a regular Latin-girl. She wasn't voluptuous, her eyes weren't dark, her hair was dark red and her skin fair, reminding people of a cross between and Irish, an Italian and maybe a German. But there was something else about her, an air of fragility, of something that people couldn't trap in words, that made her look eerie. Most people didn't like her because of that, but there were lots of other reasons why Augustine was always alone. For one: she was gifted. She was a little genius, one of those people who society couldn't comprehend nor cared to, the kind of girl who would be called geek and be shoved out of the way by that popular crowd. But, since she had experienced things like that since childhood, she had not only grown accustomed to it but had also created some kind of invisible barrier. Because everyone knows that what can't get to you can't harm you. Her own family had never really understood her. Always quiet, reading, her nose buried in some thick book ever since she had learnt to read, not going out on Saturday's nights, her eyes as sharp as ripples of ice and sometimes wearing the faraway look that characterised dreamers. Fantasy was her escape, books the way to get away form the grasp of the cruel, boring reality. 

She barely remembered growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina's capital city, with a perfect view of huge jacaranda's trees that bloomed and became masses of lavender little flowers on spring. She missed the jacarandas a lot, there where none in New York, were she had moved ten years ago. 

She had moved because her father had gotten a better-paid job there. They needed the money, so there was no other option. They had moved on winter, and all Augustine remembered of their first Christmas was an old bookshop, that had been closed a week after, and her mother taking her there to see what she wanted for the special occasion. She had wandered all alone in that big, isolated shop, wide-eyed because she had never seen before in her life so many books in one place, and had gloomily asked herself how she was supposed to find one single book to read among those shelves and shelves crammed with leather-bounded treasures. The answer had come in an odd, almost mystic way. She had been knocked out by a flying book: a blue leather-bounded book with the title carefully written in silvery characters: "Labyrinth of the Mind". It seemed little but Augustine had the strange feeling that there were thousands of things written in it. So she had bought it, despite of the fact that she was too little at that time to read it. 

She hadn't had the nerve to read the book, barely allowing herself to touch it from time to time, her fingers itching to pass its fingertips through the pages, the words, the lost tales untold. But, inside her mind, there was an alarm, ringing loudly and a voice, no softer than a whisper told her gravely: _'Be careful with the Forces you unleash, little one. Reading can be a dangerous thing and knowledge a two-blade weapon' _

And the old man in front of her knew all that. Her fears, her dreams, her conflicts, and above all he knew the real Augustine. The girl with the sparkling eyes that played the flute and was a wonderful writer. The dreamer with a strong belief in fantasy, the stubborn young lady with the will of iron who refused to crack under the pressure of her intelligence. The genius who cried and the dreamer who laughed. It was all Augustine, all unique and special. A pity really that no one else except a few noticed that. 

"What brings you to this old place, little one?" he asked warmly, his smile showing dimples that not even time had managed to erase from his face. Augustine searched inside her backpack and produced a pile of printed sheets which she promptly gave to Angus McAllen. His eyes brightened at the sight of the story that was written in those common white papers. 

"Another one, my Lady? That muse of yours surely must be in urgent need of a brake! This is the third one this month!" he exclaimed with a strong Scottish accent that made people thing of the Highlands and of people wearing kilts. 

"This one I wrote a long time ago. Actually I have a severe case of writer's block ever since my birthday" the red-haired replied "And I'm kind of frustrated by that. I can practically feel the need to write, but nothing comes out of this head of mine!" 

She said that in a light tone, but the old man knew that Writer's Block could be Hell for a person like Augustine. She cherished her stories as if they were written in gold and he knew that without them Augustine would loose one of her only pleasures and joys in life. _It didn't seem fair_, she thought wryly. 

"But that's the way it is" a voice whispered and Augustine turned to see the door of the shop burst open by a gust of wind. A man entered along with the howling wind wearing an impeccable black suit under a long, British-like coat. He had a pair of dark glasses one and a hat that was slightly tipped to a side, matching his attire perfectly. His long, silvery-white hair was pulled into a ponytail and he wasn't smiling, yet Angus was. 

"Good day, Mr. Inferno. Long time no see" he greeted politely, slurring the words because of his accent. Augustine held her breath as the imposing figure walked in long strides towards the counter and, instinctively, she took a step back and let the shadows engulf her, remaining unnoticed. She had developed the quality of hiding in the dark after years of avoiding crowds and people and now she was grateful for that. The stranger slid past her, never even glancing at the shadows where she was. Augustine's heart started beating fast and so loudly that she wondered if the newcomer could hear it. There was something in that man that unsettled her. Maybe it was the fact that his named meant 'Hell' in Latin, or maybe it was something else... His elegant hands moved with the elegance of a dandy and the agility of a cat and there was something in that combination that the girl didn't quite like. She had read something... in a book somewhere... 

As the urge to get out of the store as fast as her legs could go grew stronger, Augustine started eyeing the door carefully, mentally calculating how long it would take her to ran out of the store and down the street and the whole thing bothered her. She had never felt afraid of any person in her life. Her stoic posture, icy temper, cynicism, dry sense of humour and acid wit had guaranteed her the upper hand in everything concerning intimidating or confronting people and now she was cowering before a total stranger that hadn't even done so much as to look at her! It was a disturbing train of thoughts. 

_'The unbeatable Queen of Ice has finally met her match!'_ a mocking voice whispered inside her head. It was a high-pitched, taunting and maddening little voice that seemed to be there not to help her or advise her, but to molest her .

Sighing soundlessly the girl shifted her weight for one foot to another and, suddenly, something fell from her opened backpack. Her eyes widened slightly as she recognized the blue leather-bounded book she had bought so many years ago and she eyed it with curiosity. How the Hell had it gotten into her bag, for crying out loud? 

She bent down and gently picked it up, her eyes warming instinctively. She had a special gentleness and kindness when it concerned books, such care that her human relations had ever experienced. But just as she was cleaning the dust from the cover of the little book a voice, another very different voice that sounded child-like and tender warned her:

_'Look up, look up!_

Without doubting she lifted her gaze and her eyes met a heated mismatched gaze that stared down at her through dark glasses. Her entire body froze in the spot and her mind went black for a couple of seconds. The only things she could hear were the ticking of the old pendulum clock and the furious pounding of her heart when suddenly, the book gave her a little electrical shock and reality kicked in. 

"Damn!" she swore, quickly putting the little book inside her bag and storming off the antique shop, ignoring the surprised cries of Angus McAllen. 

"Child, you're forgetting your umbrella!" he shouted, pointing at the mentioned object that laid on the floor, dripping. The girl didn't even bother to turn around as she answered that she would pick it up later, but she had remembered some urgent matter that needed her attention. 

_'Yeah, like getting as far away from this place as possible'_ she thought in a daze as she ran down the street, shivering from the chilly air and the fact that she was soaked from head to toe. She didn't have time to look back at the shop she had just left but, if she had done that, she would have noticed the stranger of the mismatched eyes looking intently, his form guarded from the rain by an enormous black umbrella. 

The stranger lingered by the door some more minutes, staring into the spot down the street were the little girl had disappeared. He then returned to the shop and to the old man behind the counter, who was shaking his head. 

"That girl will be the death of me some day, I swear" he mumbled, sighing "She is always surprising me" 

The black clothed figure arched an eyebrow and asked in a voice dripping with heavy British accent (That, by the way, I consider utterly charming) :

"I hope I haven't scared your little friend away, Angus, She seemed like she had seen..." he paused to lick his lips and an almost cynic smile appeared on his lips "... a ghost" 

The Scottish man waved a hand as if to dismiss the subject. 

"She is a strange girl, Mr. Inferno. Doesn't like people in general and tends to scare them away. But, as a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever seen her run from anyone before. But it probably wasn't you, but something about her. She is special" he finished fondly, smiling tenderly.

The tall, silver-haired man decided to pry no further and, instead, asked whether he had the book he had asked him for about Celtic Customs. As the old man went to the back of the shop to look for the book the stranger took off his dark glasses, revealing his ruby-red and steel-grey eyes, which focused on a stack of papers. Looking at the signature of the author at the end of what seemed to be a short story he became interested. The signature read simply: Sabina V. Sinistra. 

But before his prying eyes could go any further Angus returned with the book and, as he handed it to the tall stranger, he retrieved the papers from the man's pale hands. 

"That's not for you to see, Mr. Inferno" he said simply, yet politely. Gareth, King of the Dragons and also known on Earth as Gareth D. Inferno, nodded and let go of the paper muttering something that sounded suspiciously like some Latin enchantment. An eerie gust of air surrounded him but as soon as it came it disappeared and everything went back to normal. 

"Well, I'm afraid I can't stay to chat this time, my friend. I have urgent business to attend to" he said smoothly, smiling in a way that showed well his twin fangs, as white as ivory and as menacing as two blades. The Scottish man had a sudden and almost desperate desire of cross himself and mutter a prayer, but he held that stupid impulse back and smiled shakily. That man, whenever he was about to appear almost human, had a way of reminding the shop owner of his sinister air. 

"Well, I'll see you around, Mr. Inferno... Have a nice day" he mumbled, trying hard not to shudder as the mentioned man tipped his hat, threw him another one of his vampire-like smiles and walked out of the shop, his exceedingly huge umbrella in one of his hands, acting as a cane, but he didn't get wet. Somehow, rain just didn't seem to touch even a hair of his perfect silvery white mane or the tip of his black hat. And, for some reason, that seamed to terrify Angus McAllen more than the fangs or the mismatched gaze. 

  
_ Only night will ever know   
  
Why the heavens never show   
  
All the dreams there are to know   
  
Paint the sky with stars   
  
  
Who has paced the midnight sky?   
  
So a spirit has to fly   
  
As the heavens seem so far   
  
Now who will paint the midnight star?   
  
  
Night has brought to those who sleep   
  
Only dreams they cannot keep   
  
I have legends in the deep   
  
Paint the sky with stars _  
  
  


_'The stars... What do they have that it makes me feel such... long? Such desire to embrace them, to reach for them? Why does the sky make me so happy and so utterly sad at the same time?'_ Augustine wondered silently as she looked at the night sky from her room, the attic. It was all pitch back ant the only light was the one that casted the CD player, where the CD of Enya was playing, ever so soft and always harmonious. She lied on her bed, eyes closed and eyelids caressing the pale skin that seemed even paler under the moonlight that shone through a huge window. After some moments she stood into a sitting position, indian style, still on her bed, wich was an old-looking, canopy kind of bed, with heave, midnight blue drapes that weren drawn back and matched the also midnight-blue bedspread that had embroided a map of the nightsky with silver strings. All the contellations were represented, each on their original position, the stars that formed them with their names written next to them. It was a real piece of art, and a gift from Angus, long ago. 

"The stars know everything..." she whispered in the empty room and, though her eyes were closed, she could see the sky as clear as if she was staring at it through a telescope "And I am hungry for their wisdom..." she continued, her voice echoing for no reason at all "What d o you want from me... Why do you hunt me so?"

Time seemed to stop for a second and Augustine felt like she was about to touch the other half of herself, the one she knew was dormant. But at the last moment, when she could feel herself starting to feel complete a knock on her door brought her back to cool, harsh reality. Damn... 

"Augustine, dear, dinner is ready" her mother said softly. The red-haired, steel-blue-eyed girl shook herself to be rid of the tiredness that had enveloped her whole body all of the sudden and stood up, sighing. 

"I'll be right there, mother" she whispered, always so formal. Her mother had given up on trying to get the girl to call her simply 'mum' and thought that, though weird, it was simply the way her daughter was, and didn't mind it at all. 

"You are off the hook for now, stars, but I swear that one day, no matter what costs me, I WILL get an aswer from you... About everything" she muttered before shutting the door.

And she did fulfil that whispered oath, but the costs were higher than she had expected.  


* * *

Author's Note: New format, ladies and gentlemen! I finally learnt how to work with the html format and I immediately applied it to write my new fanfic. This is just a teaser, a preview. Fortunately I finished school for this year so I'll have plenty of time to write my three fanfics and The Masks we were is ending soo, so I felt like I could handle to juggle three stories at the same time.

This is a self insertion as you know and, before jumping into doing it I asked for the opinion of my readers and you all gave me a thumgs up so I am going for ir. Wish me luck... The character is based on me. Most of the things that happened to her actually happened once to me, so it's kindo of hard to write them, but I am trying to be true to myself. I hope you like it. My muse does, and she has thousands of ideas to torment me in the story (She is quite a vindictive little thing, you see).

Well, see you soon on The Masks we Wear and The Night of the Blue Moon. Please tell me honestly what you think about this new story.

Hugs and peaches to you all...

Sabina (Or, if you like, Augustine from now on)


	2. Chapter One: The Words not Meant to be U...

Chapter One: Words not Meant to be Uttered

_"There are no limits to either time or distance, except as man himself may make them. I have but to touch the wind to know these things" - Hal Borland. _

"I so shouldn't be doing this... It's against every little voice inside my head, against everything I feel it's right and safe, and against better judgment... I am crazy, I finally lost it..." Augustine muttered to no one as the bus she was on bounced and shook a little. She was seated alone, her backpack lying on the seat next to hers, and the notorious blue book in her hands, opened. Her eyes roamed through the pages, as if she was drinking life from them. Her hands grasped the book like if she thought it was going to escape her clutch and fly away from her somehow. She wore her school uniform, which made her look even younger than she really was. Her pixie-like features were contracted into a frown as she read a riddle. 

_'As fast as light, the bearer of luck, _  


_I cross the heavens with all my sparks' _

"I cross the heavens with all my gals? What's that supposed to mean?" she wondered aloud, her frown deepening. She sighed and tried to analyze de situation, making sure that the riddle wasn't some kind of word-game or anagram... And then she started doing associations.

"Sparks... Like fireworks, or glitter... Stars maybe. Yes stars… or shooting stars. No! A comet, shooting through the night sky, with his tail full of sparks and... If you wish something when you spot a comet your wish comes true, so comets are lucky, and they sure look like thy are as fast as the light itself" she muttered, a triumphant smile on her crimson lips that contrasted shockingly with her pale skin. She continued reading then, with a crystalline very child-like voice that was so characteristic on her: 

__

"A comet" Anne guessed instantly. She smiled to herself; she was close to find the words to summon the Damned. And when she did that, she would prove she was smarter and better than him. She would show everyone that had humiliated and underestimate her... Yes, she was quite a vindictive one and she would have her revenge... At a very high price, of course"

  


Her Discman was playing Frank Sinatra this time and his booming voice hypnotized the girl as she drawled the lyrics of 'Strangers in the Night' with an enchanting accent. She could almost picture his posture and the way he moved his mouth, for she had seen him sing that song on TV a lot. She had taped all the concerts they had passed each day on the anniversary of his death, but she had been too young when he had been among the living and young, singing on stage. She would have loved to see him perform, but she had to content herself with just hearing to his music, which was sort of a consolation prize.

Someone elbowed her on the ribs suddenly and she looked up to find her little brother looking at her and rolling her eyes.

"Time to get off the bus, dumb" he said, pointing at the window. Augustine scowled but then looked out and realized he was right and cursed under her breath, stuffing the book she had been reading into her back and scrambling to her feet, an apologetic look on her face. 

"Thanks, kiddo" she muttered sheepishly while her brother rolled his eyes yet again and shook his head. 

"You'll never change" he muttered to whoever was listening and then hopped off the bus with his two sisters.

  
  


"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" a voice drawled languidly, bearing a strong and charming British accent. The taunting voice belonged to a tall, imposing man sprawled gracefully in a magnificent throne made of red gold with parts of dragons carves such as faces, teeth and menacing claws. The room he was in was huge and so very quiet. There were dragons of all kinds there: stone dragons, which were always sleeping, ice dragons, with eyes as sharp as sword blades, tiny nature dragons, with their green body and colorful eyes, little and uncontrollable air dragons that looked like oversized bugs with large, pointed teeth, magnificent fire-night dragons, which there silver or midnight-blue scales and shining eyes, water dragons with their aquamarine scales and their bodies that looked almost liquefied, every race of dragon was represented there, the air dragons playing tag with their nature pals, the night dragons discussing in some strange language that sounded like grows and howls with the stone dragons and the rest just doing whatever they pleased. It was their kingdom, after all. 

There were a couple of other creatures such as bunch pale-looking vampires that were playing poker in a corner. A group of centaurs were discussing something, pointing at a celestial chart and sometimes stomping, furious. Some meters away a pair of pixies, the two of them wearing big glasses, carried some books towards another part of the castle, while they conversed in their high-pitched voices, that were reduced a mere whisper, for the king had asked for silence, and silence was what their subjects would give him.

The King was currently twirling something between his fingers, the movement seeming so natural that they barely noticed it. The crystal ball was dull, opaque but it was just because it hadn't been used... yet.

"Whisper in her voice, whisper a thousand times what laid written in those pages..." he ordered plainly, and the orb began to glow with an ethereal, fragile light that lit up the whole room. Soon, from the depths of the crystal ball, came a young, child-like and yet wise voice:  
  
  
_"He had fought hard, he had defied everything and everyone for an answer to his questions and finally, after dangers untold and hardships unnumbered he finally had an answer. Just one, but powerful enough to change the course of his life forever. With trembling hands he unfolded the paper containing the Wiseman's answer to the meaning of life. And what he read left him gasping and wide-eyed:  
  
"Life is ironic, life is cruel,   
We dream, we wish, we want,   
And then, when we have,   
When we have fought and won,   
When we have sacrificed and lost...  
We look around and discover...  
That life's no more"   
  
  
_

It was just a story, simple rambles of a dreaming mind and yet they struck a chord somehow. They were painfully filled with truth, with the kind of honesty that was hidden, ignored, the kind of sincerity that everyone fought hard to conceal. It wasn't bitter, it wasn't sad... It was simply... a statement.

"The meaning of life is that life is meaningless" Gareth whispered and chuckled cynically "What a daring statement to make, what a bold thing to say. And Hell, it couldn't be truer. But at least, the writter put it nicely" he stood up and walked towards a balcony. Gazing at his own majestic creation, a Labyrinth, he frowned "But no human mind should have the capacity to discover such a hidden knowledge. I should keep an eye on this little author, for it may prove to be an... amusing diversion" he smiled, showing his pointed fangs "And I am certainly in the mood for a good distraction"

A couple of centaurs directed their gazes at the figure lounging lazily on the throne and shivered, looking then at each other with uncertainty clear in their big dark eyes. The dragons began talking through telepathy, their only way of speaking that any other creature could understand, between the pixies and the other dragons, more curious than afraid of the menacing chuckle of their monarch and sovereign. They had lived far too long with their King to know what was happening. He had founded another soul to torment. And, tough they pitied the poor fellow that had caught King Gareth's attention, they were glad that the damned had centered his attention into a human and not them. Besides, it was always fun to watch.

  
  
  


_The girl continued reading despite the warning bells ringing loudly inside her head. Her eyes roamed though the pages, hungry for power that they thought only those written sentences could satisfy. As she came near a little poem her heartbeat quickened and her breath came in ragged pants. Her eyes grew wide and she licked her lips before smiling ad reciting in her deep, woman-like voice:_

  
  


'No... Don't say the words!' a voice echoed around her and Augustine dropped the book almost immediately, looking down at it with a mixture of horror and undeniable curiosity... Very much alike the one that killed the cat.

"Was that just my imagination? Am I loosing it finally?" she asked herself, trying to breathe normally and stop shivering.

_'No, you are not... We exist, Augustine... We have always been with you, but we were too weak to let you know...'_ the voice carried on saying, sounding like a thousand crystalline voices speaking in unison. The red-haired girl clasped the book and looked at the air surrounding her, thankful that it was break time and no one was in the classroom with her.

"Who are you? What are you?" she pressed "I have always wanted to know that" she whispered in an almost pleading voice. The voice sighed always in perfect synchronization and starting to fade slowly...

_'We are sorry but... We can't... continue... talking...'_ the voices muttered before fading, to Augustine's utter disappointment. She knew they wouldn't come back in a long time… Or at least, that was what she thought. She never took a moment to think about the little blue leather-bounded book that she stuffed into her backpack nonchalantly before exiting the classroom without glancing back.

What a pity…

  
  
  


"Sire, you are going to be late to your meeting with the High King of the Fae" a huge, silver-scaled, amethyst-eyed night dragon muttered telepathically, looking at the back of the King of his Race, who was hovering over some papers and old parchments with a frown plastered in his royal features. His hair was mussed and the shadow of a bear graced part of his face. His eyes were adorned with gold-rimmed spectacles that hid his both fiery and cold ruby and steel eyes and he didn't seem to notice his disheveled appearance at all. He turned to look at the dragon that had dared to speak to him while he was submerged in God only knows what important research and then he sighed when he saw Raphael he took off his spectacles and held all his anger back. Raphael, First Royal Advisor and Representative of the Dragon Race in the Underground Senate were one of the few creatures that the King of the Dragons actually respected and tolerated. He was the closest thing that the so called 'Damned' had for a friend and for an equal and many times, when the fury that only the oldest Fae twins (Jareth and Gareth) were capable of unleashing clouded the mind of his King he was one of the few that could of reason with him. The Dragon, a clear member of the nigh-dragon species, was almost as old as his monarch was, and as stubborn as a mule, qualities that made him an excellent opponent for his Majesty's temper.

"Is it really necessary, Raphael?" he asked tiredly, looking at the huge, imposing dragon with a hard stare. The creature seemed want to back away and let his Master and ruler continue with whatever he was doing, but he had a duty to fulfill, and he would fulfill it even if it cost him his life.

"You know very well as I do, Highness, that it's imperative for you to meet with the High King. You are, after all, his High Advisor and… his brother. Rumor is that he hasn't gotten over the 'Incident'" he muttered grimly, looking at his Liege almost reproachfully. Gareth, in return rolled his eyes and whispered in a worn-out voice, rubbing his temples:

"What has he done now, the idiotic fool?"

The monumental dragon snorted upon hearing High King Jareth, Ruler of the Fae, being referred to as the 'idiotic fool' but said nothing. He knew that, though King Gareth had deep respect for Jareth as brother and as Ruler, he also thought that his brother was impulsive and acted stupidly most of the time, that his boastfulness and haughtiness sometimes got the best of him and that he dressed a tad too theatrically. He himself wore medieval clothes, but instead of tights his legs were encased in breeches made of a thicker material than his brother's tights. 

"Apparently, he has lost his temper yet again and tip an Ambassador from the Sylph Kingdom head first in the Bog of Eternal Stench, my Liege" he said with a deadly serious voice and was rather surprised when the Damned threw his head back and laughed his heart out. He seemed terribly handsome when he did that, a mixture of joviality and cynicism most appealing to women and for the millionth time the night-dragon wondered why his Monarch didn't have a female companion by his side.

"Well, at least now we now that all those times when he has threatened to do just that he wasn't bluffing" he retorted "And the Sylph must be hysterical! They are so mindful of their appearance, so vain…" he stopped laughing then and punched the oak table were he had been working and his face suddenly constricted into a cold mask.

"The bloody fool!" he muttered darkly "The Sylphs are never going to let this episode go. They are going to hold it against him for a long, long time" he murmured "He doesn't have a singe diplomatic bone in his damn body! This is going to cost me many sleepless nights to mend"

Raphael looked at his Sovereign with pity shining in his violet eyes. He knew that his King meant it when he said that he wouldn't sleep for nights but, after all, it was his duty. To keep knowledge and use it to help the High King as his Advisor. It was his course, and he was the Damned. There was nothing anyone could do to lift that curse from his body… or make it tolerable.

"I assume you'll go immediately. Shall I prepare the Pegasus carriage?" the dragon asked quietly. The mean of transport most preferred by noble Fae, apart from Teleportation and flying (if they had some way to procure wings for themselves like Jareth, whose heart-beast, an owl, allowed him to fly) was a carriage pulled by Pegasus. Those magical creatures, cousins of the noble unicorns, were a very diverse race. And while most Fae often settled for the Albine Pegasus (ivory white magnificent creatures with a good temper and a gentle air) King Gareth was famous for ridding what people loved to call the 'Hades chariot': a totally black carriage, adorned with spikes and sinister figures carved to the walls pulled by four of the fastest and most feared winged horses: four Umbrae studs, all with a black body that seemed to exude power, mane made of fire that changed from red to orange, violet and blue, depending on their moods and eyes with no pupils of a color that changed to match the color of their mane. They were beautiful creatures, but wild and untamed. And he loved them. They were called Cerberus, Lucifer, Dante and Ares, the most cruel of beasts. And yet, they obeyed Gareth's whip and his commands, as well as adore him… For some strange, unknown reason.

"No. I fear that if I were to drive the carriage I would demand too much of them and wear them out before we get to his palace. I think I'll just fly… Some fresh air might do me some good" he muttered absentmindedly as he grabbed some heavy protocol books and his spectacles from the table. Raphael sighed and shook his head, silently thinking that his Majesty needed something stronger than 'fresh air'. He watched as Gareth took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Something started moving beneath the skin of his back and, out of nowhere, to beautiful wings, of the same silvery-white tone of his hair, grew in his back. They were almost as huge as the monarch was and they framed his elegant, aristocratic body perfectly. It was one of the perks of being king of the Dragons. One could transform itself into a dragon or stop the transformation in order to make wings, claws, tail and everything appear without having to transform totally into a dragon. Quite useful.

He rose slowly from the floor, his wings flapping without any problem and he made a gesture with his left hand to make the huge balcony doors open and then he exited his castle, his silhouette lit up by the pale moonlight bearing a striking resemblance to ancient drawing of demons and other creatures of the night… And, in a way, he was that… A creature, a demon… A monster.

  
  
  


"Well class, I hope you've done your reading, that is exactly the topic of today's discussion" Hugh Aberline, Literature professor, said jovially, as if he had just proposed to do one of the funniest thing on Earth. Of course, nobody agreed with him.

There were loud groans from everywhere in the class as everyone reached for their copy of 'Midsummer Night's Dream' with lazy movements. Apparently they weren't happy about reading William Shakespeare before lunch. They were the kind of people that didn't seem to get any pleasure from indulging in the flourish sentences of the deceased English player. In simpler words, they didn't give a dam about him. Poor William…

"Let's begin with today's class" the professor continued merrily, grinning form ear to ear and showing rather cute dimples "Miss Archer, would you care to tell me something you've learned about magical creatures from those chapters?" he asked, looking at a dark auburn-haired, chocolate-eyed, rather voluptuous student wearing a skirt that was definitely shorter than what the school regulations allowed.

She turned her head from her nails, which she was painting with a deep violet nail polish, to look at him, as if acknowledging him for the first time since he had entered the classroom, ten minutes ago, and uttered a simple "Uh?"

The teacher patiently repeated the question and then Miss Archer finished painting her nails and answered while admiring her handiwork:

"Actually nothing. You see, yesterday I was so ready to sit down and read the whole play, I swear, but then I realized I had this appointment with my hair stylist. He is like THE hair stylist of New York, and he is like ALWAYS busy with important celebrities and it was obvious that I couldn't, like, not go to the appointment cause it would take like years to get another one so I went hoping to read later at night. But then, when I got back it was like eleven o'clock and you know, a girl needs her good beauty sleep so well, I was hoping that you could excuse me this time" she finished off her charming speech by popping a bubble with her chewing gum.

I took all of Augustine's will power not to laugh out loud and she held back only because she deeply respected the professor standing in front of the thirty students that constituted her Literature class. He was a good-natured man with a patience that seemed to know no end and a passion for the written words that matched the lithe red-haired girl's. He tried day after day to encourage his class to read and to love what they were reading, to see behind what it was obvious, to contemplate… to wonder. Simply to wonder. But they didn't seem to listen, and silently Augustine thought they never would. And it infuriated her to imagine the frustration and impotence her professor should feel every time some bubbly bimbo like Constance Archer gave a stupid excuse to be rid of his questions, disrespecting him all the way. But Mr. Aberline was a peaceful man and accepted Constance apologies yet again before asking another student.

They all gave excuses, some of them pathetically stupid, including the overused 'the dog ate my homework' with a twist (so it ended up being 'The dog ate my whole book and got really, really sick so I had to take him to the vet instead of buying another book or burrowing one') and some of them rather original (bordering the lines of 'my little baby brother stuck the book into the toaster and burned it to ashes' with the actual bag of ashes as a sort of exhibit A and photos of a darling, gurgling baby as exhibit B). Eventually very few people were left unasked and, before the poor forty-something man would pass through that embarrassment, a voice spoke softly:

"It was clear that magical creatures always want to be in control of situations, even love. And I think that Shakespeare meant to show people that love can't be controlled when King Oberon's plan backfired on him when Robin Goodfellow mistook Lisandro for Dimitrius and made him fall in love with Helena and forget about Hermia, who was sleeping by his side"

Professor Aberline's eyes went instantly to the first row of desk and , on the left corner, he spotted Augustine's petit form, her huge icy eyes staring at him with a glow that he knew came from her love for books.

"Very good observation, Augustine. Anything else you might want to share with the class? Another observation perhaps?"

The girl ignored the hurtful remarks Constance was whispering behind her and simply nodded.

"It surprises me how Shakespeare in all his plays makes men and women equal and doesn't consider female to be the weaker sex. This is clear when we read the verbal battles between King Oberon and Queen Titania. They fight as equals, as beings with the same amount of power. And there witty remarks really serve as a proof. Queen Titania obviously isn't afraid of speaking her mind" she said with a little smile "It's the same case in Much Ado about Nothing. Beatrice not only is as intelligent and as witty as Benedict, but she also ends up winning most of their verbal spars" she added, remembering how much she had laughed upon reading that particular play. Professor Aberline smiled fondly at her and replied:

"Excellent observations, Augustine. You really have a keen eye and a sharp mind. I am glad to see that you have benefited from my classes"

There were more sardonic commentaries from the rest of the class directed to the petit girl and whispered in hushed tones, and class went on.

"Such a good little teacher's pet. You don't surprise me one bit" Constance hissed from Augustine's back. The girl didn't turn so the other girl kept talking with her best friend and equal witch, Bianca Adams.

"She sounded like such a dork! With that childish voice she has, so annoying. And she is like always trying to please teachers. What a looser!"

Both girls giggled and professor Aberline looked sharply at them. His eyes then darted to Augustine, who was wearing a black expression on her face, though he noticed her hands where clenching the sides of her desk so tight that her knuckles were turning white.

"No boyfriend, no friends whatsoever… It's like No social-life. Maybe that's why she always has her nose buried in books. To avoid cruel harsh reality" Constance pressed, not yet ready to stop teasing the girl in front of her. Augustine turned, rolling her eyes, and looked directly to the snobby sophomore student and fellow classmate.

"You are obviously trying to piss me off and I am here to propose something. You try to say just one single sentence without the world 'like' in it and that it doesn't sound like just a pathetic attempt of your tiny little pink brain to say an actual witty remark and then I'll think about being pissed off. In the mean time you can just babble on and on, see if I care" she said plainly, her eyes sending shiver's running down the popular girl's spines. They were painfully reminded of the fact that Augustine wasn't the average 'docile and stuttering geek' but a rather spooky one.

"At least I'm not a lonely girl. At least I'm normal and no some error of mother nature" Constance hissed back, her fear quickly dissolving and leaving only a wounded pride and lots of anger.

Augustine was reddened speechless by the words 'normal' and 'error'. It was her soft spot, her only weakness. She hated to be reminded of the fact that she was different from the rest of the world. She hated when people and even her own family stared at her as if she was something strange and dangerous, something never meant to be.

"Bite me" she muttered through clenched teeth and then professor Aberline stepped in and asked what was going on.

"I was just commenting that it's unfair for us to be expected to, like, give the answers Augustine gives. After all it isn't our fault that we aren't gifted as she is. You can't just like blame us for being normal, healthy teenagers" Constance said aloud, gaining reproachful glares from everyone in the class. Most of the students were lazy, yes, but good-natured. Thy respected and even cared about the little red-haired, and more than one or two were starting to get tired of Constance attitude. Augustine's eyes shone dangerously before she turned to look at the noisy bimbo.

"What are you trying to imply?" she asked in a treacherously calm voice, her eyes flashing. The questioned girl replied innocently that she didn't know what she was talking about and then, sensing that the petit redhead was about t explode, Hugh Aberline stopped the girl's 'staring contest' and asked Augustine to fetch him a glass of water.

"Of course, professor" was all that she replied before stepping out of the classroom and then hitting a wall with her fist, that promptly started bleeding. In some way the blinding pain helped her focus on another thing apart from Constance's hurtful remarks. She had sworn long ago, when she had first discovered she was 'different' than the rest, that she wouldn't cry, and she was trying hard to keep that promise. She took a deep breath and didn't blink or move for about a minute. When she felt she was not going to cry she took a handkerchief from her pocket and bandaged her hand with it. The white cloth was promptly soaking with her blood but she didn't seem to mind. Behind her she heard footsteps but she dismissed them. Just another student excusing itself from class to go to the bathroom and smoke probably or write some stupid comment on the bathroom walls. She didn't notice that both female students got closer and closer till they grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, emptied a bottle of two liters of water all over her and dragged her towards a staircase.

"That's for molesting in class, you freak" they muttered before pushing her and sending her falling down and down. Augustine found herself at the bottom of the stairs, all bruised and scratched and soaking wet on top of it all. As her eyes surveyed a particularly big bruise in one of her forearms she whispered over and over: 'I must not cry… I must not cry'

  
  
  


"Jareth, for the love of the Underground, open up!" a voice boomed from outside of one of the goblin King's towers. The aforementioned King just looked at one of the double windows and motioned it to open. A very cold and definitely very tired Dragon King entered immediately, flapping his wings in a weary way and managing to land gracefully in the floor with soft thud.

"Whatever happened to you?" his brother asked upon seeing that his usual 'spiky' hairstyle had turned into a 'bird nest' hairstyle. Gareth just glared at him, crossed his arms over his athletic chest and spoke gravely:

"You must really have a death wish"

His brother held back the urge to laugh at the appearance of the Keeper of Wisdom and Master of the Powerful Dragons and settled from imitating his posture and arching an eyebrow, clearly expecting some explanation as for the presence of Gareth in his palace.

"I'm talking about your little accident with the sylph Ambassador, you lame excuse of a Ruler" the silver-haired man spat, hitting the surface of an oak table with his fist, miraculously doing himself no harm. Jareth didn't get upset upon being called 'lame excuse of a ruler'. He just shrugged and commented that the bigheaded, arrogant little sylph had just gotten on his nerves.

"So you simply dragged him towards the Bog and dumped him there?"

The High King frowned and tugged at his gloves before replying with a very offended tone of voice:

"I didn't 'dumped' him. I have more elegance than that. I simply…" he started saying when his twin cut him off.

"…tipped him head first, I know" he said jadedly "Everyone knows. You use that threat way too much, my dear sibling. The problem here is to ensure that the Sylph Race doesn't cut relations with you for what you did to their Ambassador that, by the way, was a really mature and diplomatic movement" he finished, his voice dripping with sarcasm. His brother shrugged yet again and Gareth suddenly had enough.

"Brother, she is just a mortal girl! Brave, I give you that, and yes, quite beautiful, but she is part of your past! Let it go, for the Sake of your Kingdom!" he yelled impulsively, regaining after that outburst his composure. Jareth looked at him with anger shinning in his mismatched eyes and said dryly:

"Don't mention anything related to Sarah in my presence"

Gareth muttered something under his breath and a chair went flying towards him. He sat down and started pulling out all the books he had brought with him about protocol. He opened them over the oak table he had hit earlier and motioned his brother to come to his side.

"We will find a way to get you out of the mess you have thrown yourself into. After all, that is what I do best" the Monarch of Dragons said lightly. For hours they were trapped there, in that rounded room in the top of the Eastern Tower of King Jareth's Castle, thinking, analyzing, reading, speculating and discussing with no avail. There was not a way out of their present predicament. Night gave way to the day, but Gareth knew that in his kingdom it was still as dark as if it were midnight. In his kingdom night lasted longer than day.

Suddenly inspiration struck the Dragon Ruler. He scribbled a couple of spells in a sheet of paper and then handed it to his brother.

"Take this to your High Healer as fast as you can. Tell him to follow the instructions of the spell carefully and to perform it as fast as he can" he said simply. His sibling arched and eyebrow and asked what the spell was.

"It's a memory spell. It will cause partial amnesia. The Ambassador won't remember anything about you dumping him into the Bog…" upon seeing his twin's angry glare he corrected himself "… tipping him head first, whatever. And the other spell is to get the smell out of him. From the point of protocol, there is no way out of this diplomatic mess, so we will have to use the other way: magic"

The King of the Goblins snorted and replied that, if it was that easy he would have figured it out himself.

"But they'll sense the spell. We cannot use magic on the ambassador. That is basic knowledge, Gareth" he told his twin harshly but the silver-haired Fae just rolled his eyes.

"This spell is untraceable, my brother. It is so ancient and so complex that doesn't live a mark" he replied with a sardonic and rather smug smile. His sibling looked at him wide-eyed and asked, totally surprised:

"How do you know that spell? I've never heard of a spell that doesn't leave marks"

Gareth smile became sad as he replied softly, yet clearly:

"They are called the silent Enchantments. People forgot about them after The War. A lot of knowledge was lost because of The War. But, of course, I still retain it. After all, I know everything"

There was no hint of sadness or pain in his voice, but Jareth knew better than to be deceived by his twin's calm exterior. But there was nothing he could do to help his brother, and he knew Gareth would be too proud to accept his help anyway.

"Well, it's settled then. Maybe you would want to stay and chat a little. You would be a good change from all the senseless conversation the goblins provide" he commented while he kicked a random subject of his with the tip of his leather-encased left foot. The twin frowned a little.

"What about Lady Dalila? Doesn't she provide you interesting conversation?" he taunted, arching an eyebrow. The King of the Goblin had the decency to turn a slight shade of pink before answering:

"She is full of… nothing. Nothing at all. Her little chit-chat is amusing most of the time but…" he stopped then, as if regretting was he had been about to say. But Gareth knew all too well what those words were.

_'…but she isn't Sarah. That's the problem, isn't it Jareth?'_ he thought _'My Goodness, this girl is really something but, how can anyone become such a slave for another person?'_ he wondered then _'I'll never make such a fool of myself_ he promised.

Oh, if he had only known how soon he was about to brake his promise…

"I whish to cease, I wish to end, I wish the Damned would take us away…Right Now!" a voice echoed in the middle of the room were the two sibling were standing. Gareth raised his gaze to look at the ceiling of the room, startled. Then he looked apologetically at his brother and sighed.

"Seems I got work to do, brother, so we'll just have to postpone out little conversation" he started to fade, undergoing the cross to Aboveground when he added for good measure "and please brother, do me a favor and restrain yourself from dumping people in the Bog"

The last thing Gareth heard before leaving the Underground was the voice of his twin, saying harshly:

I DO NOT dump people! I tip them head first, which is an entirely different thing!"

  
  
  


"She's been out there far too long, professor. I don't like this one bit" Mercedes, a blonde, tall and very kind student sitting on one of the desks in the front row said, concerned. She was as good as a lamb, and a girl who seemed to see good in every people she met. Professor Aberline nodded, staring at the classroom door, hoping that it would open to reveal his tiny little red-haired student carrying a glass of water, but it just didn't happen. The door remained closed and the student waited and waited, hearing the clock above the blackboards ticking.

"The little freak probably got lost or something, we should just continue" Constance proposed but no one listened. Furious, the girl grabbed Augustine's backpack and started pulling out all her books and things, including her precious Discman, trying to find something to amuse herself with.

_'There's nothing here. What a bore…'_ she thought grimly when her eyes fell to the bottom of the backpack, were single little leather-bounded book lay undisturbed.

"My, my, what have we got here?" she said in a singsong voice "The little brat reads children books!" she shouted loud enough fro all the class to hear "Books about fairies and magic, it's like… lame!" she smirked, seeing how many students agreed with her, some of them reluctantly.

"Read some of it, Constance. Let's see what that dork is reading" Bianca prompted, smiling cynically. Constance cleared her throat an made an imitation of Augustine rather child-like voice and started reciting:

"The girl continued reading despite the warning bells ringing loudly inside her head. Her eyes roamed though the pages, hungry for power that they thought only those written sentences could satisfy. As she came near a little poem her heartbeat quickened and her breath came in ragged pants. Her eyes grew wide and she licked her lips before smiling ad reciting in her deep, woman-like voice: 'I wish to cease, I wish to end, I wish the Damned would come and take us all away" at this point the girl made a gesture towards all the class and the proceeded "Right Now!"

The last two words echoed eerily. Suddenly a gust of wind flew open the two windows of the class and the glass of the windows shattered into a thousand pieces. The sound of flapping of wings filled the student's ears as a shadow entered though the shattered windows and landed behind professor Aberline. Gareth, King of the Dragons and so-called Damned straightened and swept his cool glance over the class with disdain clearly showing in every one of his aristocratic features.

"Who are you?" Hugh Aberline shouted, turning around to face the stranger. He simply smiled, tugging absentmindedly at his gloves (We all know and love that little habit Fae people have) and his fangs shone like two well sharpened blades.

"I am the Damned and, for now on, I am your owner as well, and the last thing you'll ever see" he whispered, his voice hissing slightly.

And, outside the class, somewhere in the school hallways a glass shattered in a girl's hands and Augustine suddenly felt as if she had been struck by lightning.

"What was that?" she asked to the air as she stared at the shards of glass lying in the floor with wide eyes….

  


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Author's Note: I can't believe how many people reviewed this fanfic! I am almost finishing a chapter from the night of the Blue moon but I wanted to post this little chapter as soon as possible. I am not a fan of Labyrinth fanfics that don't revolve around Jareth and Sarah, so I thought few people would like this one. I am so glad I was wrong!

Please keep reviewing, you don't know how much it means to me. Again, most of what happens to Augustine (the fall from the stairs, the incident with the bottle of water) actually happened to me and many of Augustine's classmates are modeled after my own classmates (Yes, there is a Constance in real life, and she is as bad as I made her look). I even have a Literature Professor just like Professor Aberline, though I changed all the names, of course.

See you soon on 'The night of the Blue moon'. I am also working on 'The Masks we Wear' so keep an eye open for any updates.

Hugs and peaches from you most devoted author (As if…),

Sabi (Or, as my muse calls me, a big pain in the rear)


	3. Chapter Two: The Player is Chosen, and t...

Chapter Two: The Player is chosen, and the Game begins

Gareth smiled in delight upon seeing the horrified looks in the mortal's faces. They were positively terrified of him, and he in the knowledge delighted on the fear he caused on their minds, a power much greater than any common Fae trick.

"Who are you?" an annoying female voice asked suddenly and the King directed his mismatched, heated gaze towards a black-haired, exceedingly tanned girl who was holding a blue book… his book, he realized "Why are you here?"

Funny thing that you ask. You are the one that summoned me" he replied with a cool, hard voice, pointing at the book with his cane, which was completely black and was finished off by a crystal, perfectly rounded and of a translucent shade of gray, resting on one of its ends.

"No way! Not in a million years!" the girl mumbled, dropping the book as if it had burnt her. But the Dragon King simply threw his head back and laughed long, hard and icily before shaking his head.

"To late to fear the book" he said simply, smiling in a way that gave Constance a perfectly terrifying view of his vampire-like fangs, a view which sent shivers running down everyone's spine.

"What do you want of us? And who are you, anyway?" Professor Aberline dared to ask, trying to appear brave for the sake of his students, who wear in great need of a hero at that moment.

"Nothing important, really… only a piece of your soul, of your being" Gareth whispered boldly, wearing his cynic smile all the way "And as for who I am, that easy. I'm a Fae, a magical creature"

For some reason no one dared to laugh at that statement, but rather shiver. Constance, suddenly, burst out laughing, holding her sides.

"This is some kind of bad joke, right?" she said aloud, looking straight into the unblinking eyes of the Monarch "Some kind of stupid prank. And I bet that little freak Augustine put you up to this" 

"Don't defy me, stupid mortal" Gareth warned, narrowing his eyes and clenching his cane with one hand, his hair flowing in the air as a gust of wind that had suddenly formed itself circled his lithe form. That was a omen, a sign for her to stop, which she didn't.

"Justin, will you let that man insult me?!" she yelled towards a tall, lanky boy with dirty-blonde hair, green eyes and baggy clothes. He looked like a cross between Brad Pitt and N'Sync. Feeling self-assured with all his muscles product of his Rugby training and all the school fights he had picked up along the years the sophomore advanced towards the King with confident steps, meaning to punch the living Hell out of the spiky silver-haired Fae who sat on the professor's desk, trying to decide whether he should be amused or angry. He settled for both.

"So you don't believe me? So you choose to defy me?" he asked quietly, holding out a hand. In its palm appeared a rounded, diaphanous object of a transparent shade of silvery-grey. His ever-present cynical smile grew wider as he tossed the crystal to Constance's boyfriend, sending him flying seven feet above the ground. He landed on the cold, hard floor with a loud thud, rubbing his sore back and looking at Gareth with a shocked expression, his entire body shaking like a leaf.

"Have I proved the veracity of what I am?" the Sovereign asked in a low voice, his hard eyes staring at Professor Aberline, who nodded.

"Don't hurt them, please" he said, positioning himself between the magical being and the kids "I beg you"

"Too late to ask for anything, I'm afraid. Specially mercy. But I'm surprised for you petition. No one has ever demanded kindness from the Damned" he paused to look at the boys and girls behind the middle-aged Professor and then shook his head "But what's said is said"

"Is there any way out of this?" the professor asked, his voice eerily calm and collected. He had accepted everything fairly well, focusing on solving the problem rather than on explaining it, which seemed impossible to do.

Gareth smiled, a chillingly pleased smile, enjoying the moment. So the mortal man wanted to know how to recover his freedom and get out of the foolish wish with his entire soul. Interesting. Always interesting.

"I don't think you really want to know, mortal, but I'll tell you anyway, for it's my duty" he drawled, twirling a crystal within his leather-clad fingers "You have to choose a champion, the cleverest, the most witty of your petty little group and the chosen will have to run my Labyrinth and solve it within thirteen hours"

Everyone remained silent, each one of them trying to digest the new information. Somebody asked rather bluntly what would happen to the rest while the 'chosen' traveled the Labyrinth.

"They'll be trapped in a cage in the castle beyond Lumiara, the Dragon's City" came the cold response from the stone-hearted King, who tapped the floor with one of his feet, apparently waiting for them to choose a 'champion'.

They all started to argue about who would be the best choice, many people thinking it would be wiser to send Professor Aberline, and some people against that theory. Gareth goggled, sighing loudly and stopped the discussion by simply rising a hand.

"The wisher is the one entitled to choose" he said simply. Everyone turned to look at Constance, who suddenly enjoyed being in power (man, how thick can anyone get…?)

"Eugene is the best student" she said finally, after giving the matter some thought "Well, except from the weirdo, of course. I think she'll have no problem solving the Labyrinth"

The idea actually made sense. Mary Eugene Blooming, a sixteen-year-old sophomore with long dirty-blonde hair and brown eyes, was one of the best students of the class and, once, she had been the very best. She wasn't a nerd by any means… She belonged to the cool crowd, to Constance's world. She was a fairly respectful student, skeptic to the core and terribly bounded to reality, liking the exactitude of Math and Physics over the open-mindedness of History or Literature. She studied hard, memorized, analyzed but didn't imagine… didn't dream. It had been alright before, because no one could surpass her notes even with her narrow-mindedness until one day… Augustine had changed to the school, and the tables turned.

The little girl, with her silent air, quiet demeanor and piercing gaze had stolen her position and forced her to be second best. She hadn't been happy about it, be sure, but she had masked that anger, and no one had ever knew. And, later on, Eugene had chided herself, wondering why she had been jealous of a girl who had no life… No friends, no boyfriend… nothing? Augustine was just a poor little thing whose only purpose in life was to study and dream, nothing more and nothing else. And she passed from envying her to pitting her in a rather wicked way.

"I'll do it" Eugene said, with more bravado that she really felt, eyeing the Dragon King, and noticing (as we all have noticed with Jareth) how handsome he was. Not that it was a good moment to notice, but….

Gareth snorted gracefully, contemplating the mortal before him with a mixture of disgust and disdain. He could see just how rational she was, how by-the-book her knowledge was… and that appalled him, a lover of originality, creativity and belief.

"You are challenging my Labyrinth with THAT?" he spat, as if he felt insulted by the mere thought of Eugene traversing his precious creation "She'll never make it" he added as an afterthought.

"Why do you think so? Miss Blooming is a very capable and smart young lady" Hugh Aberline enquired, unconsciously arching an eyebrow in a very defiant way.

Gareth circled the blonde-haired girl, eyeing her critically, and shaking his head, tsking.

"She has a very strong hold in reality. That simply won't do in my Labyrinth when reality is something non-existent. She is way too 'by-the-book', has no imagination whatsoever and little belief or knowledge of the unknown…. Of fantasy, of my world. She'll loose without a doubt"

Everyone fell silent for a minute and then, though a little bit reluctant, Constance said:

"Well, the freak does live in wonderland all the time and, besides, I wouldn't want to risk one of my friend by making her run a Labyrinth"

"Who will challenge my Labyrinth, then?" the Damned asked, his patience growing thin.

"She is not here, but she'll come. Her name is Augustine…" she stuttered, almost tripping and falling to the floor because of her uncontrollable shivers.

He laughed then, a true cruel, cynical laugh that echoed in the classroom, making everyone shiver in apprehension. He made a swift movement with his wrist and another of his all-too-familiar and all-too-feared transparent grey crystals appeared on his left hand. He twirled it on his hands teasingly, preparing to throw it at the window and make his Labyrinth appear out of the Blue (a typical Fae gesture, I'm sure) when something interrupted him.

At that very moment the door quietly opened and Augustine came shyly inside the classroom, her eyes downcast. Gareth promptly hid within the shadows, making a gesture for everybody to be quiet and not tell the newcomer of his presence. Too stunned to speak, and too afraid to contradict him, everyone remained silent.

"I'm sorry professor, but I couldn't bring you the water. There was…" Augustine paused to think about what had exactly happened moments ago with the glass shattering suddenly "… an accident" she finished, not finding a better way to explain the incident in the corridors. She advanced a few steps, smiling apologetically, not knowing that there was a pair of all-too-familiar steel grey and ruby red eyes boring into her very soul.

He stared openly at the human girl that had entered moment ago, his head titled to a side and his platinum mane of hair brushing one of his shoulders gently. The dark, reddish tresses and the icy-blue eyes struck a chord in his memory, as well as her petit form. She had entered in the middle of his act and he should be mad at her for doing so but… She was simply too fragile, too damn feminine and vulnerable-looking for him to be angry with. However, he had the nagging feeling that there was more than met the eye with the girl standing in front of him, so near that if he reached with one of his hands he could easily capture one of those tempting mahogany bangs that framed her face.

"It's okay, Augustine" Professor Aberline replied, trying to find a way to make the girl get out of the classroom… Some excuse, something to ask her to go and fetch… Something, anything!

"What's going on, professor? You look worried and I'm starting to have a bad feeling about something" Augustine said aloud, frowning. Her heart started beating incredibly fast, and breathing had suddenly become a difficult thing to do. Her left hand was suddenly aching painfully and she could hear droplets of blood falling from the soaked handkerchief to the floor in a rhythmic pace.

Drip, drip, drip, drip…

And then, when she saw the book lying open in the floor, and the stunned face of Constance, who was standing next to it, she felt the world spinning around her, and everything becoming dizzy and nebulous. The voices inside her mind where whispering now, voicing worried remarks and cursing the stupid mortal that stood next to the cursed book.

"That damned book!" she said aloud eying the copy of 'Labyrinth of the Mind' with a hateful look "Tell me you didn't read the book!" she pleaded then, moving her gaze from the floor to the chocolate-brown eyes of her classmate. And what she found in their depths didn't please her at all.

"You fool! For ten years that book has hunted my dreams and plagued my days, and yet I never gave into the temptation, no matter how strong was the urge, how achingly painful was the need. And yet you… you…" she paused for a moment and then a terrorizing thought entered her mind "Did you say the words?" she breathed out, limbs trembling and eyes wide with apprehension, fear and… excitement? Desire? Yearning?

She stopped when she sensed someone just behind her. The aura of power that emanated from this being was unmistakably not human. And, suddenly, she had the answer to her own question.

"You are him, aren't you?" she whispered without even turning to meet the mismatched gaze of the Fae King "You are the Dragon King" she finished her voice almost faltering.

A strong gloved hand gripped one of her shoulders rather painfully, forcing her to twirl around and face him. Her nose brushed the silk of his shirt and she lifted her gaze to stare into his mismatched eyes and thousands of memories of events of the past and events that had yet to happen flooded into their minds. The first encounter, in the Antique shop, her little runaway act, their staring contest, her form running down the street, soaking wet… Crystal wings, an ice-blue gown… A secret, a dance, a song… heartache, pain, sorrow… Love?

"Angus's little girl" he sneered, his eyes never leaving hers and his words the only proof that he had recognized her. Without breaking eye-contact the girl lifted a hand and gently stroke his neck, where a black mark in the shape of an ancient Fae character was tattooed. 

"The Damned…" she said aloud, reading the inscription in foreign language. She had seen that mark in her dreams so many times that she knew it by heart. She quickly freed herself from his iron grip in her arm and took two steps back, needing the personal space like she had never needed it before.

"Who did she wish away?" she asked breathlessly, while she backed up even more, her hips colliding with a desk and almost making her fall while his tall form hovered over her, making her grab the sides of the desk and try to bend over to avoid touching him. 

"Everyone" he smirked down at her "She wished everyone away… Except you" he crooned in response.

She gulped, taking then a deep breath and asked later, trying not to sound frightened, in spite of the fact that it was obvious that she was scared to death:

"Who will run your Labyrinth?"

The almost inaudible 'drip, drip' of the blood drops continued, going unnoticed by everyone except Augustine, who was starting to feel really stressed out. Blame it all on the blood loss or on the fact that she was having a little chit-chat with a book character, you choose.

He smiled upon hearing her soft-spoken question and brought his face closer to her, till his mouth was inches apart from her left ear. She could practically sense his leer as he whispered softly the answer, his breath warm against her sensitive skin:

"You"

It was more than she could take in at that time. She felt light-headed, almost unreal, and the world around her twirled, and the voices in her head grew louder and louder

_'It was your destiny after all, mistress. No matter how hard we tried to protect you, fate wanted you on the Underground' _one whispered.

_'But if she goes there what lies within her, what we tried hard to protect and preserve will wake!'_ another voice interjected.

_'It's destiny… We can't fight it'_ a third voice spoke softly, ending the argument.

And it suddenly was too much for the girl. She took some steps back, freeing herself from the prison the King had created with his arms, his body and the desk, closed her eyes and simply fainted.

"Augustine!" huge Aberline shouted, worried. He ran to her, but Gareth was faster and caught the girl with easiness and gracefulness that only a true Fae could display. He lay her down on the professor's desk, which was the largest one, and then noticed the handkerchief.

"My, my, what do we have here?" he taunted softly, removing the soaking piece of cloth from her hand. Instantly he saw the peeled knuckles, the blood dripping from them and, when he inspected closely he noticed another cuts, bruises and scratches all over her body.

"You'll tell me what happened…" he whispered, kissing each one of her knuckles and making the scratches disappear "Not now, but later" he smiled down at her, not a nice, tender smile but a cynical one "Now" he added, making a movement with his wrist and trapping everyone except for himself and the girl lying on the desk in a huge crystal sphere "It's time to play"

He scooped her up in his arms and they both disappeared from the now dessert classroom to appear in the top of a hill. His Labyrinth could be seen from there, twisting and turning like a Devil's snake, and also the city beyond it and the Castle farther away, rising imposing against the midnight-blue night sky. Some nature dragons, their bright, glowing eyes shinning with curiosity, approached the pair, trying to take a peek at the red-haired girl their Monarch was holding coldly yet… tenderly? Cautiously? In his arms.

"Who is she?" one of them, whose eyes were yellow and who had a red birthmark in his back asked to his friend, who was of a darker shade of green.

"I have no idea, Thyme. Why would I know?" answered the mentioned dragon, named Ivy. Their monarch eyed them with a scowl in his face and ushered them away, waving his hands. Then he took one last look at the woman-child he had placed gently on the blue-green grass and sighed.

"Let the games begin" he whispered softly, disappearing with a flash of light and leaving a faint cloud of glitter hanging in the air as the only proof he had been there at all. And, near Augustine, a silvery-white clock started counting the thirteen hours of her journey, while she slept peacefully, unaware that the time was slipping slowly from her hands.

  


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Author's Note: Hi, it's me again (sorry for the ones who were waiting for the Easter Bunny…). Anyway, this is their second encounter! And, just as the first one… it didn't go well! But there is certain chemistry between them that is undeniable! Of course, I can't have those two realizing this yet, can I? What do you think of the story so far? Do you want to hug me, hate me, throw tomatoes at me, tip me head first into some bog (that would ruin what's left of my social life- which ain't much- so please think twice before doing that)?

Well, read and review people, please! I want to know if the story, in spite of the fact that ins0t centered in Sarah and Jareth it's a good story and if people are reading. Anyway, the people that will be in the Labyrinth waiting to help or mislead will be totally unexpected and sometimes you'll wonder in what mental hospital I am, but it will be fun, I'll promise.

Well, gotta go. You know the deal: read, review, I post and everyone happy! Hugs and peaches from your favorite author (it's wishful thinking, I know, but follow my lead here) 

Sabi (and my muse, whom I'll accuse of being a slave-driver if she keeps treating me like this!) 


	4. Chapter Three: Bruises of the Body, the ...

Chapter Three: Bruises of the Body, the Mind and the Heart:

Augustine opened her eyes slowly, feeling utterly wonderful and relaxed. That lasted about two seconds before she noticed the starry sky and the eerie surroundings and jolted up, her eyes wide and a gasp escaping her lips. A clock, marvelous creation that seemed taken out of Louis XIV personal collection, ticked ominously next to her, hanging from thin air, with nothing to support it. Well, laws of gravity be damned! That was the Underground and Isaac Newton's pathetic little theories had no value whatsoever.

Augustine's eyes widened as she saw the clock. She had been out almost a whole our! That put her in disadvantage and she hadn't ever entered the damn Labyrinth yet! She groaned inwardly, knowing that probably his royal Egoness was watching and she had to appear confident and resolute in his eyes. You know, just to piss him off. She laughed silently, knowing that it would take more than just to look confident to infuriate the Damned.

"Well, let's get started" she mumbled to herself, descending from the small hill and almost bumping into the huge, imposing doors of the Labyrinth. They were enormous and seemed to go on and on till they reached the skies. Thee was a big lock, the size of her bed probably, that held the two doors together, aided by a big chain of thick links that where bigger than her closed fist. The message was clear: _The Labyrinth was clearly, irrevocably and positively locked_

"He really thinks that will fool me?" she muttered to herself "Things aren't always what they seem on the Underground, or at least that's what I read. So if these doors appear to be locked, then there are not locked at all"

Easy enough, when the girl touched the doors with the tips of her fingers it opened widely, revealing the splendorous maze that twisted and turned before her. But that did little for Augustine's peace of mind. The fact that she had had no problems whatsoever entering the Labyrinth only unnerved her all the more. She felt as if a thousand pair of eyes where watching her, waiting for any fatal mistake, any stupid slip, and it would be forever over.

_'What a comforting thought'_ Augustine thought gloomily _'Maybe I should stop talking to myself for a couple or hours…'_

She shook her head, trying to decide what path to take. The right one or the left one? Deciding that doubting wouldn't do, she turned to the left and began walking, noticing with some pain that she had somehow twisted one of her ankles later when she had fallen from the stairs. The reminded her of her left hand, that should have been bandage but, when she looked, it was healed.

"What on Earth…?" she exclaimed, eyeing her hand with confusion shining in her clear ice-blue eyes.

"Magic" she whispered finally, sighing wistfully. She closed her eyes, trying to remember what had happened after he had muttered that single dreadful word in her ear: she had stumbled back, felt dizzy and collapsed in the floor, but… She hadn't hit the ground, she was sure of that. And now she had some tingly, yet exquisite sensation running though her veins, the sensation of warm and yet deliciously chilly magic caressing her…

"Oh, snap out of it, girl…" she muttered to herself, shaking her head, her locks of reddish hair following the movement "It's his magic, for goodness's sake!" she added, her usually milky-white cheeks acquiring a beckoning pink tone.

She gathered all her strength and started running down the path she had chosen, feeling as if a thousand knives where stabbing her on the ankle.

"When this is over, I swear someone else is going to get pushed down the stairs" she swore aloud, trying to ignore the pain and the tingly sensation that mixed into a bittersweet feeling that washed over her body.

And she kept running.

  
  
  


"Run, run, my little minx, let me see how far you can get" a voice taunted, deep and somewhat British. The voice came from a room lit by torches hanging from stonewalls, the fire almost dancing, changing from red to blue, purple, black, green and orange. The walls were covered by tapestries and portraits but mostly they were bare, adding a rustic and cold touch to the dark chamber. There was a cage, finely carved and made of the best steel that the human (and inhuman) eye had ever seen. The cage was large and held a number of fifteen or sixteen prisoners inside, none of them looking particularly happy. In front of the cage, levitating a little from the floor was a crystal ball the size of a 29' inch TV, in which a scene was displayed. The prisoners stared intently at the magic crystal ball, peering inside to see. A few meters from them, half-hiding in the shadows that seemed to be alive and moving freely, forming eerie and yet graceful forms in the walls was Gareth, King of the Dragons and called the Damned, watching with interest how his new mouse was doing in his Labyrinth.

She was surrounded by the stone walls of the Labyrinth's Main Hall, a passage that was known for proving people's belief and patience. She was running, clearly favoring her right leg and trying not to wince in pain. A few wisps of hair had escaped her ponytail and danced around her pale face. The blush that had graced her cheeks for a while was gone, leaving the moonlight paleness adorning her features. He remembered her confused and glazed expression when she had stared at her left hand, which was completely healed. She had recognized his magic as the one responsible for that surprise and he had seen barely a hint of shock and the phantom of an emotion in her eyes before she had gone back to normal, the blush as the only proof that she had felt anything at all.

"At last she is up and about" a voice muttered from the cage. The Monarch turned his gaze for a second and looked at the only adult inside the prison. The Professor looked terribly relieved after he had seen his student wake up, seeming not to mind the hour that had been wasted already. He concluded that he cared a lot about the girl, who probably was the only student in that damned classroom of his that paid him any kind of attention and represented challenge.

He too had been slightly worried when he noticed that time was passing and the girl wasn't recovering her senses. He had even thought about bringing her round with magic, but he had decided against it. He wasn't supposed to show any kind of goodness towards anyone, particularly humans. But it was getting a tad too tedious just looking at her form lying on the grass, or that is what he told himself to justify his urge to make her regain consciousness with a spell. It was simply enough, a soft, lingering kiss in her forehead would do the trick, but something inside him told her it wasn't safe ground to touch the girl in any way, much less kiss her. He had paced restlessly in his Throne room, now less crowded but still inhabited by creatures of different races, who seemed unnerved by their King's agitation and impatience. They seemed more interested in the humans in the cage, studying them with their heads titled to a side and an amused expression in their faces. Some of them, though, refused to even pay attention to them, feeling obviously above them, superior in every way.

Oddly enough, Constance was wearing a similar look of snobbish superiority mixed with disgust and fear, which she wasn't going to admit, of course. She tried hard to stay away from the bars, fearing that one of those creatures would come close and try to touch her or something worse. She flinched when Justine, one of the few people in the classroom that could be considered a close acquaintance of Augustine touched her arm to scare her, laughing after the girl let our a high-pitched scream. Professor Aberline was professional enough to stifle his own laugh and to try and shoot a scowling look towards Justine, but her failed miserably as his eyes danced with amusement for a while before his attention was turned again to the big crystal orb floating in thin air, and to the sight of the red-haired girl approaching the doors of the maze.

Gareth had been both mortified and thrilled when he had seen her easily seeing through the lock's façade. He had had the assurance then that he was facing a worthy challenger, but he had hoped that she would have to think a little to defeat his illusion and step into the Labyrinth. He had allowed his eyes to lit up when he had seen her come round, gingerly and gracefully standing up and gazing at the clock with utter disbelief and shock but he kept his cold mask on that time.

Now, as he saw her running though the never-ending passage, he was pondering where the right time to confront her would be. For some reason he was eager to do so, magic tingling in his hands and urging him to teleport to were she was just to tease her, to mock her, to challenge her…

Damn, things where quickly starting to get out of control. His own magic, that recognized him as its only master and Monarch was on the verge of defying him for a stupid need to see a mortal! That was something deplorable in his eyes.

Feeling as if he had been cheated by his own power he crossed the room and sat on his throne, wearing an angry look. Justine whistled when she saw his positively fuming expression and mumbled to herself something that sounded suspiciously close to: "Boy, that's one pissed off Fae…" Fortunately for her the Dragon King didn't hear her. His whole attention was focused on Augustine's image inside the crystal ball. She had stopped running and was staring intently at one of the walls at her left side. Apparently, she had heard something.

The well-known devilish smirk of Gareth appeared on his lips and his eyes lit up instantly, gleaming with a malevolent light.

"Well, well, well, let the real challenges begin" he muttered to himself while he leaned on his throne, his slender legs crossed and one of his hands absentmindedly holding his cane while his eyes devoured the petit form of the mahogany-haired girl inside his Labyrinth…

  
  
  


"Hello? Did someone just say something?" Augustine shouted above the stonewall she was facing. She was tired of running and not getting anywhere, so she had welcomed the strange noise she had heard as an excuse to stop and, maybe, talk to someone who might have an idea of how to stop running in a straight line "Please, is someone is there, talk to me! I think I'm going to go insane!" she pleaded then, slumping to the floor with a sigh. She was alone, and had been defeated before the adventure even started. What a waste…

"And what's the problem with going insane?" a voice chirped suddenly, half-amused and half-annoyed "I've been insane for over five centuries and you don't hear me complaining!"

Augustine's head jerked up upon hearing the response and she tried to hide her joy while she apologized for 'insulting' the man.

"It's not that I have something against mad people, sir" she said politely, standing up and looking at the wall, knowing that whoever was talking to her was on the other side "It's just that I don't think it will help me resolve the Labyrinth"

There was the sound of shrill laughter and snickering. The man that was speaking to her shushed whoever was (or were) laughing and asked for a little bit of manners.

"I'm trying to talk here!" he admonished before turning his attention to the red-haired girl again "If you want to cross the Labyrinth, then you will certainly loose it before you finish. A maddening place, this is, young lady"

Augustine was starting to silently agree with the mystery man she was talking to, but she pushed that thought aside, for it wouldn't help at all. She tried to think of a way to get her new acquaintance (?) to tell her how to get past her straight-line dilemma without being obvious.

"Sir, if you don't mind, why do you say you are mad?" she asked, trying to get a hold of the conversation. Her interlocutor seemed to be puzzled for a while and then laughed wholeheartedly, 

"Well, it's just because I really am. Or maybe I had too many cups of Tea…" he said aloud, laughing again "By the way, young lady, do you wish to accompany me for tea? I assure you it's one of the finest teas you'll ever taste" the stranger invited casually, as if he wasn't aware of the fact that there was a huge wall separating them and that it was the middle of the night.

"B-But, S-Sir-r" she stammered, her eyes wide and her jaw dropping "It's the middle of the night!" she blurted out. A chuckle was all that she got as an answer.

"You are saying nonsense, my dear. It's almost four o'clock, Tea time! You must hurry if you want to accompany me for Tea, because I can't serve Tea after four o'clock!" he said then, as if the thought of serving a cup of tea a second after the mentioned hour was simply dreadful. Augustine saw her chance to get out of the straight corridor and asked nonchalantly:

"And how do I get to where you are, sir? There is a wall between us; I can't just walk through it!"

"And why not?" was all the answer she got "It isn't as if you would crash into it or anything of the like"

Augustine closed her eyes and sighed, running a hand though her slightly damp hair, a painful reminder of the 'staircase incident' and thought grimly: _'The man wasn't kidding. He is really insane. He lost it completely'_ But then memories came flooding back into her mind: memories of people whispering near her, looking at her with a certain look and shaking their heads in surrenders, as if she was some kind of lost case. A child who had lost her grip on reality… a freak, a weirdo… They all thought she was crazy, or mentally ill. Few had ever believed in her… Just as she wasn't believing a man who was, in a way, trying to help her.

"Might as well give it a shot" she said aloud, shrugging and taking a deep breath. She eyes the wall and her heart almost sank at how painfully real and solid it looked, so she shut her eyes and then launched at the wall, without thinking or rationalizing the situation. She kept running, without stopping till she realized she should have crashed against the wall a long time ago. She then stopped, timidly cracking one eye open. The scene that met her gaze made her gasp: in front of her was the most beautiful bower she had ever seen, entirely made of white, flawless marble, with vegetation circling the columns. There was a rounded table in the center, made of rich cherry wood and covered with a white mantel with lace trimming it exquisitely. An excellent tea set of porcelain and decorated with blue drawings was set for five people and comfortable-looking chairs finished the whole thing off. 

"Your tea awaits you, young lady" someone said behind her. Augustine swirled around to face her strange helper and instead saw… The Mad Hatter of Alice in Wonderland. His top hat was slightly titled to a side, two Aces adorning it, one of Hearts and the other one of Clubs. The jacket of his suit was burgundy and made of velvet, while his pants where midnight-blue. He wore a white shirt with ruffles in the collar, and a bow-tie of the most unusual shade of forest-green. His shoes were crimson, and shinned as if they had just been polished. To make the longs story short, he looked every inch the character she had read about in the fantasy book when she had been a little girl.

"Well, make haste, dear, the tea won't drink itself, you know?" the Mad Hatter ushered, pushing her towards the bower, where three people had already took their seats. They were the most unique trio of friends: and elf, a fairy-boy and a hobgoblin all… totally and utterly drunk. They were swinging their teacups from side to side in one of their hands as they held them high in the air and chanted a song in a slurred tone, hugging each other occasionally. It was a pretty pathetically funny sight to behold.

"Don't mind them, young lady" the Mad Hatter said, drawing a chair for her to sit in "they like to drink whiskey before tea, add rum to their tea, and then drink some glasses of sherry" he commented nonchalantly, sitting down next to her and pouring some tea in her cup.

Augustine eyed the warm liquid with a weary gaze, not wanting it to be spiced wit rum. She lifted the cup gingerly to her nose and smelled… vanilla. Sweet, tantalizing vanilla. She smiled at the Mad Hatter and took a sip confidently, instantly feeling better. She hadn't realized, but she had been shivering since she had stepped into the Labyrithn. It was no place to be soaking wet in the middle of the night.

"The tea is delicious, sire. Just what I needed. Thank you very much" she said heartily "And, may I ask, sir, what are you doing here, instead of with Alicia?"

The Mad Hatter smiled, pleased to see that she knew who he was, and then cleared his throat to answer.

"Well, I was created by a woman who wrote a book, as you well know and was read by so many people who believed in it, children, that the book itself and its characters came to life. We existed in a realm created by the children's minds but, as they laid us aside to play with other toys instead of reading our story our world begun to fall down. We parted, each one of us going to different realms, but still keeping in touch. Well, most of us" he shrugged "I found a nice little place to have tea, and I'm quite pleased with my situation. This is a very interesting place to live in" he paused and grinned rather madly "Filled with riddles and puzzles, it is a challenge to the mind and the body both"

He stopped and their three other companions cheered, proposing a toast for the Labyrinth of King Gareth and for the best rum they had ever tasted, toast which was accompanied by several hiccups. Augustine wondered for a minute why they didn't pass out from all that alcohol, but then again, things never happened they way they should in the place she was in.

She felt kind of silly, sipping tea in what looked like the middle of the night, but she shrugged those thought's off. It was then when her companion noticed something that made him jump in his seat.

"You are bleeding, my dear… Your head…"

Augustine looked confusedly at him and then shook her head, rising a hand to touch the back of her head.

"You are mistaken. This is just water, not blood…" she commented lightly, but when she drew her hand back and stared at it, she was it was stained with blood. She drew in a sharp breath and then remembered hitting her head against the wall in front of the staircase when she had fallen down and landed. She hadn't noticed that it was bleeding, but it didn't really matter. It wasn't half as urgent as her left hand had been.

"It's nothing. I've seen worse" she assured him, trying to cover the violet bruise on one side of her neck and the cut in her right arm. She wasn't blushing or acting embarrassed, she was rather retreating into herself, an unconscious defensive tactic. The Mad Hatter understood her and patted her gently, his madness forgotten for a brief moment.

"I understand. I don't want to press you, my dear" he said gently and the froze in his spot, staring at something, or rather someone right behind her.

"Oh, but I do want to press you, my precious" a voice whispered directly into Augustine's ear. The girl didn't even flinch, her eyes darkening as the only proof she had acknowledged his presence at all "What a pity…"

She shuddered then, his three last words echoing in her mind. Mockingly accurate, derisively true. It was really a pity she didn't want to tell him, because he was going to found out anyway.

"An accident" she heard herself mumble foolishly, her tone calm and collected yet her body shivering from something she knew he knew wasn't cold. She wasn't sure what it was… Maybe it was fear, apprehension, anger or his deliciously warm and enticing breath tickling the sensitive skin… She didn't know. What she did know was that the thick wall of coolness and serenity she had developed over the years was about to collapse because the tingly feeling in her blood had increased the moment he had stepped into the bower. Damn him a seconds time, if one hadn't been enough for him.

His rich, British laugh filled her ears and her senses, and in a irrational moment she closed her eyes to see if he would have gone away when she opened them. But, very on the contrary, he sized his opportunity and lifted her to his feet, guiding her inside the bower. The table, the Mad Hatter and the Drunken Trio had disappeared, leaving only the red-haired girl and her assailant.

"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you my dear?" he drawled, sounding rather patronizingly, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, making all the hairs on the back of her head stand up. She clenched her fists, showing an extraordinary amount of self control. The thing was that she wasn't sure if she was restraining herself from running away, punching him in the jaw or… surrendering to him.

_'Better not go there'_ she warned herself _'It's dangerous territory. And, on top of it all, my hormones decide to react like common teenage hormones just now! Aren't they sweet?'_

"Now, now, will you tell me the truth or will I have to…" he paused to lick his lips, a gesture that Augustine heard more than saw "pull it out of you?"

Augustine wondered briefly how he managed that threaten to sound utterly sinful, but it was probable a part of the show he was putting on to make her loose, and she was decided to prove him that she was no damsel in distress for him to take advantage of, and that not all women fell into his arms by only listening to the sound of his voice.

"They are bruises of the Body… They don't matter much" she said softly, laughing a short, bittersweet laugh "You shouldn't be concerned about them"

He tried to ignore the pain he felt in the bottom of her voice, and simply touched her hair with one of his hands gently, uncovering the bleeding wound in the back of her head. She winced and tried to escape his touch, but he held her firmly with one of his hands.

"Oh, but I'm not concerned, my dearest, I'm simple curious" he paused to apply pressure on the shoulder he was holding, ever so slightly "The sooner you tell me, the sooner you'll be able to continue your journey. The clock is ticking, and time's short. Tell me what happened"

She sighed, controlling the turmoil of anger, sorrow, helplessness and raw fury that brought the memory of the so called 'accident'. She was good at hiding or keeping her emotions at bay, but still it was painful to do so.

"I was pushed from the top of a staircase. Happy now?" she asked, her tone soft yet sharp at the same time "I hit my head with a wall when I landed. As for the peeled knuckles… I punched a wall with my bare hand" she paused when she sensed his surprise "Anger management, a moment of weakness, call it whatever you want… Is that all?"

"I fear that my answer to that question will have to be no, my dear" he said with a sigh, absentmindedly kissing the back of her head to make the wound disappear and moving his lips to her throat, obviously intending to do the same with the purple and red bruise there. As soon as she felt his lips on her neck she moved rapidly away from him, smiling.

"I won't fall for that, Dragon King. As I told you before, my bruises are bruises of the Body. The bruises of the mind I learnt how to heal them with time… And as for the bruises of the Heart… I have learnt from past experiences that they don't heal at all, you know? The broken heart remains like that no matter what. So I decided that it was better not to let someone in, because nothing that can't reach you can harm you" she paused to smile once more, this time an icy smile that could rival his own chilly smirk "In other words… I _can't _feel anything for _anyone_. I lost that ability a long time ago… As a survival mechanism" she finished explaining, looking at him, as if expecting something. What she got was a booming laugh from the Fae King in front of her.

"I see that you are proving to be more than I could have ever expected. My little Ice Queen, since now this is war and everything goes" he smiled wolfishly, showing his pointed teeth "I'll conquer your mind, little one, no matter what is costs me"

She glared at him as he faded, the table, the trio of babbling, slurring friends and the Mad Hatter reappearing. She smiled at her new friend and asked him to point her the direction to the Castle beyond Lumiara.

"You have to go now to the Egyptian Maze, and the challenges there are great. Unfortunately I was banned from that place a long time ago, but fear not, for we shall meet again" he said with a laugh "After all, hour tea was rudely interrupted and in my watch is four o'clock always!"

Sure enough, his clock was stopped at four o'clock exactly. Augustine chuckled, remembering that the Mad Hatter was, after all, a madman, in spite of the fact that most of the time he seemed pretty normal for a place like the Labyrinth. She waved goodbye and she traveled the path she had been told to follow, suddenly noticing something triangular and of the color of golden sand. Not very far from her, rising imposing in the midnight sky, was a perfectly built pyramid. That promised to be interesting.

  


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Author's Note: Hi everyone! I can't believe I updated in a fairly decent amount of time! Aren't you proud of me? Well, anyway, this chapter is a little bit spicier, but I didn't want them all mushy and corny together on the third chapter of my fanfic! Sorry but they have a long way to go before that. And you know me, I want them to suffer, I want you to suffer. Let's face it, people, I'm evil (laugh maniacally).

Well, now speaking seriously, I thank all the people that not only have reviewed once, but that review each chapter, telling me what they think about it. It means a lot to me, and it has been terribly helpful. To the people who do this, a big, big thank you from the bottom of my heart. I would send you a mini-Gareth to each of you, but my muse monopolizes them and doesn't let me have even one…

as for the speech of Augustine about not letting anyone in, I'm guilty as charged. That's one of my flaws, that and let all my emotions bottle up till I explode… Well, old habits die hard, and I'm afraid in certain way to let people close to me. That has never brought me anything but pain.

Well, let's pass to a more cheerful subject, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah and a terrific New Year. May you receive the presents and the blessings you wished for. And this chapter is dedicated to my little brother, Santiago, who today turns fourteen (he is not so little anymore). He is not here, but wherever you are, little bugger, I want you to know I am thinking of you, in spite of all the nasty comments I make about you. I don't say this very often, but I love you and you know that (now I'm getting all mushy…)

Hugs and peaches to you all, people. See ya soon, 

Sabi (who just can't wait to Christmas Eve to eat turkey…) 


	5. Chapter Four: Not Quite your Ordinary Gi...

Chapter Four: Not quite your ordinary girl

"Sir, you have returned!" Raphael welcomed warmly as he saw his master appear in his room. He received a cold glare for the Sovereign, who stalked past him and propped in his throne, his expression the one of a somewhat confused man. That look wasn't one the dragon expected to see in his omniscient Sovereign and didn't quite pleased or appeased him. It made his utterly nervous.

"What happened, milord?" he enquired, bewildered. The Dragon King pointed at the huge crystal Ball showing an image of the Labyrinthine visitor heading towards the Egyptian Maze. Raphael's eyes widened then, and he almost let his jaw drop from the impression.

"The girl is still on the Labyrinth!" he blurted out, as if it was the strangest thing he had ever seen "But, Milord, I thought you had…seduced her, just like the others"

Gareth sighed and then stood up, walking towards the crystal ball and gazing intently at it, as if he wanted to make it implode with his eyes. Not that he couldn't do that, mind you.

"I… I was charming. I behaved exactly like my twin, every time I do that ladies fall at my feet, and the game is over" he snorted "I hate it, but I do it nevertheless! I have had women throwing their selves at me for much less"

_'That's an understatement'_ Raphael thought silently. Yet he couldn't decipher what had gone wrong. His Highness might be aloof, antisocial and terribly cold, but when he wanted to be charming, heck, he was so damn charming that one could have mistaken him for his twin. It was something he did, seduce female Labyrinthine travelers. It saved him a lot of time. Clueless, lovesick, petty little teenagers were what his Monarch hated the most. He had lost several hours seeing them try and fail the Labyrinth again and again till he had decided something. To seduce them, to charm them into submission. And, after that, the game was over, and he always won.

Well, that was till the day that damned girl had crossed the doors of his precious construction.

"Why didn't she… fall for you, Milord?" the Advisor chose his words wisely, for he knew any wrong impression he might give could quickly ignite the feared Royal wrath. The monarch just shrugged, turning his attention to a stake of papers and a pile of books in a table near the bubble.

"She is made of ice, the kind of ice that the simple fire of Lust alone can't melt" he replied "But it doesn't matter. Let her transverse my Labyrinth and die trying…" a small smile flashed across his chiseled features "I couldn't care less"

After saying that he returned to his books and knowledge, leaving a crestfallen Dragon asking himself whether his liege had a heart and a couple of mortals, trapped in a cage, fearing for the life of one whom they had done great harm to, and in exchange was trying to do great good to them…

  
  
  


"Hollywood's theatrical designers, eat your hearts" Augustine mumbled calmly as her eyes swept over the triangular structure in front of her. The sand from which the blocks that formed the pyramid were made was as golden as the very metal itself, shinning a bright golden hue as if rivaling the pale silver of the moonlight above it. It was a geometrically impeccable work, tastefully decorated with the bright reds, blues, golds and greens of the Egyptian Culture. Black statues of Anubis in his animal form (a jackal) with a typical headdress used mostly by pharaohs guarded the entrance. Being Anubis the God protector of Tombs, it was customary to set statues of him as protectors, sentinels of the Pharaoh's body and place of eternal rest, meaning the Pyramid. The structure was positioned in a favorable way, bearing in mind the constellations shinning above it. The location of such a work of architecture musk have taken experts a long time to decipher, taking all things needed in account so to please the Gods and keep out the bad spirits. Anubis, with his canine face and feral expression, was meant to scare both tomb raiders and jackals, which had the annoying habit of digging there way into the pyramid and making havoc in it. That is why that particular vigilant God was represented with that particular animal. Call it irony…

"This is not exactly the time for an Anthropologist lesson" she scolded herself, tearing her eyes away from the wonder displaying it selves in front of her. She walked towards what seemed to be the entrance of the Pyramid and took in the hieroglyphic message above it.

"They must be a warning, or an advise. It's useless, for I know not what it means"

She was answered by a soft, almost muffled 'meow'. From the black depths of the Pyramid appeared a black cat, with shinning gold eyes, an Egyptian necklace made out of gold painted with blue and adorned with rubies and a pendant hanging from the collar. It was a golden disk adorned with the face of a cobra on the base, much like the 'infinity' symbol the Egyptian Royal Family used.

"Thanks, kitty, but I don't think that you can help me" she muttered to the feline, who seemed offended. When the cat repeated his meow the girl looked at him/her and remembered two things: one, that she shouldn't take things for granted and two, that the gold disk and the cobra were symbols of…

"Bast?" she asked, eyeing the cat "Goddess Bast, Lady of the East, Bearer of Light, Goddess of the Chamber… Bastet?" she enquired, bewildered. The cat didn't meow this time… The cat laughed. A true, amused laugh that sounded feminine for the girl's ears.

"So you, mortal, know me… Well, you deserve to transverse the Egyptian Maze then. Your knowledge will be the thing tested here, and your most useful tool" she bowed and Augustine noticed the gold earring in her right eye and the bracelets around her wrists and ankles "I am indeed Bast, or rather her avatar, her incarnation. And, for deciphering me and returning me my ability to speak, I shall be your guider. By no means I will tell you the way out of the maze, but I will aid you if necessity arises"

The cat, now stated that it was a female, seemed both kind and haughty and Augustine decided that she couldn't trust her more than the animal trusted her, which obviously wasn't much. But she decided not to push it too far and asked her whether she could tell her what the message above the entrance of the triangular construction read. The feline stared at the complex set of figures and symbols before replying:

"It's a riddle and a warning. You must solve the riddle to enter the pyramid, or the moment you step into it the whole structure will crumble and fall apart. The riddle reads:

__

I welcome the day with a show of light,

I stealthily came here in the night.

I bathe the earthy stuff at dawn,

But by the noon, alas! I'm gone.

  


"What's that supposed to mean?" Augustine wondered aloud "It doesn't make sense!"

Bast smiled patronizingly at her and almost shrugged, smiling.

"I would be careful with the answer, because she must say it as you trespass the entrance. If your answer is wrong, then the entire pyramid will collapse over you" she told her suddenly, as if she had just remembered that important little detail. The mortal gasped, looking at the cat as if she couldn't believe her.

"But the pyramid is still intact!" she huffed "Does it mean that everyone that reached it has solved the puzzle?" she asked with a heavy heart. The feline's smile broadened, thing that didn't please Augustine at all, and Bast shook her head.

"No, it means that no one has dared to try and see if they had the right answer. They took other paths, which made them loose time, but didn't have the courage to try and see if they were right. But I haven't heard, in all my thousands of years, any mortal utter the right answer. They were all wise and preferred to take another path" she explained rather devilishly, absentmindedly licking on of her paws and looking at the woman-girl in front of her with her unnerving, golden eyes. 

"You are enjoying my torment" she accused her guider plainly, sighing and trying hard to solve the riddle.

"I bet I'm not the only one" the avatar muttered under her breath, wondering briefly who the mortal girl had managed to get past the 'Master's Ministrations'. She didn't trust the girl at all and the reason for that was that she had and icy soul. She, being an avatar, was able to see that. A cold, solid aura that surrounded her, very different from the nice, warm glow of mortal girl's auras.

In other words, she wasn't an ordinary kind of girl.

"I don't have all day, you know?" Bastet spat out, utterly annoyed after a couple of minutes of sitting there, watching the red-haired girl doubt. It was human nature to doubt, to distrust the capacity of their own mind, just as it was Fae nature to be over-confident. They were as opposite as it was possible, and yet so much alike…

"Don't be foolish, turn around and stop wasting so much time. You can still make it if you go down that path" the cat said, taking pity on the girl's situation; even though it was probably her own foolishness the one who made her end up there on the first place. Augustine looked at the other path and sighed. The Avatar was right, she had to be. It was crazy to risk her life for a couple of hours of advantage.

Feeling totally defeated the girl backed away from the pyramid and started going towards the other path when something made her ears perk up: it was the faint, almost elusive sound of laugh. Not a merry, joyous laugh but a mocking, sardonic one. A laugh she had heard too many times. And then something clicked, and a whisper rose above the weak chuckle. And in that instant she knew that, somehow, she had gotten it right. The answer.

Without warning she twirled around and ran back to the entrance of the Egyptian tomb. If she gave up there, she would never make it to the center and she knew it. And she would not be defeated. For her it was more than a quest to rescue people who had put her on that situation on the first place… It was a way to prove herself that she was important, that all the years spent being an outcast had forged a will of iron and that it wouldn't go away, not when she needed it. And she needed answers as well.

"Are you crazy? Don't be foolish, little mortal, you will die! Come back; come back before it's too late!" Bastet practically begged, her eyes the size of spoons and a look of both fear and disdain glowing in them. That mortal was just too stubborn and too foolish, she was racing towards her own death.

"the answer to the riddle is 'the morning Dew!'" she said aloud as she trespassed the entrance. As her feet touched the floor of the pyramid she went still, looking above her for any signs of a collapse. However, there was nothing but silence.

For a moment she felt like jumping, like hugging Bast and like dancing around, but her emotions were always kept at leash, always in control. She threw the flabbergasted avatar a look and then grabbed a torch that had magically lit up itself the moment she had stepped into the maze.

"Aren't you coming, Bast?" she asked aloud before venturing deeper into the unknown, a twinkle in her eyes as the only sign of her joy for the victory.

  
  
  


"My God… I can't even look!" Professor Aberline muttered under his breath, in a state near fainting from the apprehension and fear he was feeling. He wondered briefly why everything in the realm he was had to be a 'life or death' kind of thing and he felt grateful when Justine told him that Augustine had decided not to try her luck with the riddle thing.

"The stupid twit is loosing her opportunity of a shortcut! That is gonna cost her hours that she could have spent saving us!" Constance practically growled from her spot in the cage. Her chocolate-brown eyes were spitting fire and fixed in the read mane of hair that was visible from the interior of the crystal ball that functioned as a sort of TV screen. But her gaze darted from the perfectly-rounded orb to the lithe form of her captor, whose face was buried in some thick book and his legs were crossed elegantly over one of the chair's arms, in an almost defiantly lazy posture that contrasted with the look of utter concentration he was wearing. Papers were sprawled across the oak table in front of the throne-like chair he was perched in, and he casually glanced at one or two of them every now and then. She licked her lips in a nearly unconscious motion. He was simply to die for! All of him, from his silvery-white seemly untamable mane of hair to his strong, toned legs and incredibly sexy leather ridding booths screamed sensuality and power, and that was something no girl could ignore. Well, almost no girl…

"Hey, do you think maybe the dork is in the… 'all girls team'?" someone asked near her. Constance twirled around to see her friend Bianca, who was smiling almost viciously, hoping she had found another way to torture their favorite doormat once they returned to good old normality, of course. But the questioned girl shook her head.

"Nope… She is just too frigid" she dismissed the subject with the wave of a hand "Now, on the other hand, I know of someone with whom I would like to get hot" she smiled almost sinfully, making a slight gesture with her head to signalize the Dragon King. As slow as she was, it took some minutes for Bianca to process everything and understand the meaning of her friend's words.

"So what are you gonna do to get'im?" she asked with obvious interest as she looked towards her friend and then their captor "I'll do anything to help" she added, thinking mentally that it was a good way to get Constance's boyfriend to break up with her and then she surely would be ready to make her move.

"Just follow my lead" Constance whispered back, an all-knowing grin adorning her features.

"Hey, you got us all in this trouble, made some poor girl cross that dead trap called Labyrinth and all you can think of is shagging your captor? What kind of rotten, twisted mind is yours?" Justine muttered almost disgustedly near her left, making a face, her eyes holding disbelief.

"I don't want *just* to shag him" the girl snapped angrily, trying to defend herself when… She discovered something else. It was true, she didn't want *just* to shag him… She wanted so much more.

'My God, she ain't kidding' Justine thought with a surprised look. The popular cheerleader had that funny, almost warm glow in her eyes every time she even glanced at the Sovereign. A small smile crept over her mouth, even when she knew she shouldn't be amused. Someone was about to get her heart broken into million of tiny little pieces and even the thought of it made her snicker and wait in anticipation. Of course, her guilt appeared not so long after her amusement.

'It will be good for her to taste some heartache to help her understand that emotions weren't things to be toyed with… Aw, who am I kidding? She will never learn'

As this inner battle of delight and guilt occurred inside Justine's head, Constance had already taken her first step: set the scene to be damsel in distress. So, of course, she had to be hurt. She instructed Bianca to pusher and made her trip and Bianca, eager to have Dean for herself, did as she was told without hesitation, so Constance was promptly in the floor, acting her part.

"Aw… my ankle!" she yelped, wincing in fake pain. Professor Aberline resisted his urge to roll his eyes heavenward, having seen Constance 'pick up' act thousands of times before "It's killing me!!!" the girl shouted again, trying not to be so damn evident. Her yelling distracted the King from his reading and he patiently put the book down, glancing at the cage with his mismatched eyes showing no apparent interest. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses- that had the sole purpose of making him read ten times faster than he could with the use of a spell he had cast on them- and finally, in one sweep, natural movement, he stood up.

"What's the matter?" he enquired with his heavy, incredibly maddening British accent. He drawled the word with such naturalness that it seemed as if he had been born speaking that way. Thinking about it, no one could be sure he had been born at all.

"She twisted her ankle. You know, there can be lots of accidents in the confined space of a cage" Justine answered, with sarcasm bordering her tone. He seemed to ignore it (as he did with most things) and simply walked towards the cage, opening it with a wave of his hand. Of course, after learning lesson number one in the Underground (Don't defy the person who can blast you into next week) nobody dared to try and escape. After all, better to be trapped in a tiny little cage than to run away towards the Labyrinth and its numerous and mostly deadly dangers untold and hardships unnumbered. He eyed the mortal with disdain written all over his chiseled features, his brow frowning.

"Can you stand?" he asked with a rather frigid voice, his mind preoccupied with other things. Constance tried to hide her disappointment, and decided not to give up, so she shook her head in denial.

"The rules of the Labyrinth state that the 'wished-away's must not come to harm while the challenger is trespassing the Labyrinth, so I'll better have a look at your ankle" he said nonchalantly, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her towards a chair. Constance was in cloud nine, waiting for the time when he would place his elegant, pale hands in her ankle… Though the moment never came. He simple looked at her in the eye and frowned.

"There is nothing wrong with your ankle, dearest…" he said knowingly "But that was a good try"

He moved away so quickly she barely had time to register it. In one perfectly coordinated movement he had returned to his position in the throne-like chair he had been previously occupying.

"You are just going to leave me here?" she said, almost shocked to the core, her eyes wide. Nobody had ever refused Constance Archer, and even the thought of that happening made her feel strangely defeated.

"What makes you think, mortal, that you can accomplish what thousands of immortal women have failed to achieve?" he asked, a look of cold amusement set in his features. Constance felt suddenly very silly and said nothing. Raphael shook his head as he watched his liege return to his papers, books and ancient knowledge. He looked at the mortal woman with mild interest in his eyes. She wasn't breathtakingly stunning or anything, but the way she gave herself to men had some fake, she undeniable allure, something that drew men to her and captured their attention, if only for some minutes.

"He has been lust after for various reasons since the beginning of time, child. Not a woman, Fae, elf, fairy or of any other kind has ever truly captured my attention ever. He is damned, and his damnation caused his lack of emotions" he told her softly, trying to get her to give up.

Just when he finished saying that there were several gasps and a yell came out of the floating crystal orb.

"Are you crazy? Don't be foolish, little mortal, you will die! Come back; come back before it's too late!" a female voice pleaded, sounding almost exasperated.

"My God, she is going to try and answer the riddle!" Justine exclaimed, her voice sounding a little high-pitched from fear.

"What?"

Everyone turned their eyes towards the now slightly agitated figure of the dragon King, who stood up so suddenly that threw the chair to the floor. With quick strides he approached his levitating glass ball and peered into it.

"The Bloody Fool…" he muttered under his breath as his heart unconsciously speeded up. He held his breath as she passed the entrance, a firm look placed on her face and… Nothing. Nothing happened; the world didn't fall down, so to speak. She was there, standing inside the tomb, completely safe. And she didn't seem surprised by that.

He watched her as she grabbed a torch and thought, amusedly, that it was way too big for her petit, almost weightless form. She called for her avatar, who was at a loss of words. Finally the cat enquired how she had managed to get the courage to test her own intelligence at the cost of her life.

"Una Voluntad de Hierro… Una voz…" the girl replied in a strange language that rolled out of her tongue as smooth and as caressing as silk, a smile tugging the left corner of her mouth. At the puzzled expression of Bast the girl translated easily "A Will of Iron… A voice"

He felt desire as he had never felt before. He wanted her mind, he craved for it. It was strictly intellectual the need. Her puzzling, cryptic mind would be an excellent addition to his Labyrinth's essence.

"I'll have you soon enough, my little one" he whispered to her image inside the glass orb, practically purring. He smiled wolfishly and then snapped his fingers and the huge oak table moved towards him, stopping near the orb and the cage. Constance chair and his own follow the table. Settling down as they reached it. He returned to his seat then, fumbling over papers and books, but with half of his mind and attention focused on the red-haired girl and her journey.

  
  
  


Author's Note: Well, that's it. This chapter got out of my hands, if you know what I mean. I intended to write one thin, but then the 'keyboard demon' took hold of me and then this happened. It's as if the story was alive and wrote itself as I go along. I didn't even intended to write half the things written here! 

Well, I'm happy to say that it's a lot of reviews the ones I'm getting. A true inspiration, and thanks to Rhiannon Faylinn for your suggestion, it was brilliant and I'm trying to include it in the story, hopefully with some success. And thank you Starbrat for actually taking the time to discuss Shakespeare with me. I'm glad you paid attention to that part of the story, for it is my opinion of the play. It was really good of you to send that review and, though I partially agree with you, I beg to differ in some points. Well, both are valuable opinions and well… thanks again fro your review and for taking that Shakespeare part seriously. And to all my other reviewers, thank you very much for you comments and you loyalty to my fanfic (or fanfics, if your read more than one of them).

The update of The Night of the Blue Moon will come soon and the next chapter of The Masks we Wear is slowly progressing. I'm sorry, but I had thins thing for endings. I don't know quite how to write them because they have to be impressive. See you soon (hopefully), 

Sabina (who is going to Brazil on holidays soon, so don't think she just vanished!) 


	6. Chapter Five: The Things that Lie Within

Chapter Five: The things that lie within

"When I was a little girl I used to sneak into my parents' room and take out books to read. They had this marvelous bookshelves carved from the very walls of their bedroom and it was at ground level, the highest shelf rising only three feet above the floor, so it was all at arms reach for a little child like me. I saw and read things that I shouldn't have, of course, but I also learnt so much from… The world. I learnt ancient eastern wisdom from the I-Ching, and that appeased my rather fiery nature. From novels I learnt about bravery, healthy mischief, fantasy… even love, in al its expressions. Fraternal love, distant love, unconditional love… Soulmates. And I learnt a thing or two about cultures, specially their religions… Greek, Romans and Egyptians, there are no mystery to me. Teenagers and their fascination for sluttish blond singers who show more skin than talent are, on the other hand"

Bastet hid a chuckle upon hearing the human's latest remark, and shook her head. She had been extremely wary of the girl whose soul seemed cold, but she wasn't purely evil. And, given the fact that she hadn't spoken to an intelligent soul since the Pharaoh, who now lay forever asleep in the depths pf the Tomb had died, she was a rather refreshing novelty. But there was something odd, something inhuman about the mortal that she couldn't quite decipher. It was as if she was human, but at the same time she was something else. Something the avatar, who had been alive since little before The War a long time ago, had never seen before.

"You seem like a rather nice mortal… A dreamer, with enough intelligence and belief to not take things that are considered fantasy lightly, so… How the Hell did you end up here?" the cat asked as they wondered through the many dark, narrow passages of the pyramid that twisted and turned to their own free will, like some sort of living entity. The girl looked at the black-furred animal and shrugged.

"The book was mine, and still is. It has been ever since I was six years old, but I never gave into the temptation. I've always known that the book was, and still is, dangerous. I… I didn't say The Words. God, I wasn't even there when They were spoken, or I would have stopped that foolish mortal!"

Bastet stopped dead in her tracks, her golden eyes opened wide. The way the girl had said the last word, mortal, with that slight air of superiority that characterized those who don't perish as easily as humans, was exactly the way most immortal Fae said it. And that ticked her off.

"But how did you know the book was dangerous? How did you know that you weren't supposed to say The Words on the first place?" she carried on questioning, arching an eyebrow, though the gesture was lost in the blackness of her face. Augustine turned sharply to look at her and, for a moment, her eyes seemed to shine brighter than the roaring fire that graced the tip of the torch she was carrying. A moment later the eerie ice-blue light was gone, and when Bast saw the normal expression the girl was wearing, as if nothing had happened, she thought that maybe it had been the light of the flame reflecting in her clear eyes the cause of the glow, though she knew deep inside she was just kidding herself.

"That's none of your business, but I'll tell you. I've never told a soul about it, but being here just increments the need to do so and end the secrecy" she paused and absentmindedly ran a hand through her forehead, touching one spot and letting one of her fingertips describe an invisible figure along it and then reached out and removed a cobweb from their way "The voices told me… I hear them randomly. They don't come from inside me, but they speak to something inside me. Something I try to reach out for, but I don't want to catch. I know what it is, but at the same time I don't" she chuckled and then put a hand over her heart "One thing I know, though… It's me, it's a part of me, it is almost everything that I am"

The Avatar didn't reply, but seemed relieved. The girl had described the symptoms of a person, a simple human, with a sixth sense. Granted, it didn't usually manifest itself in the form of voices, and there was something else that didn't quite fit, but it was just a sixth sense, that was all. She was a gifted mortal, but a mortal nonetheless. She sighed in relief and, realizing she had stopped walking with Augustine, she joined her at the end of the passage. The corridor split in three from there and they looked all the same: dark, uninviting and dreadfully dangerous.

"Well, getting lost in the middle of an ancient Tomb was not included in the Dragon King's nice little pep talk back in my class, with all that mystery and trapping me against desks thingy" the red-haired mumbled to herself as she gazed at the corridors. Suddenly the air was chilly around her, but she didn't shiver. She had always liked the col. So refreshing, so teasing and deliciously familiar. The cold was a friend, not a foe.

_'Some things stay, no matter how much they tried to conceal the truth'_ one of her all-too-familiar voices whispered in her left ear, at the same time as she felt a gust of wind mischievously brush past her at the same side.

She didn't turn to see if there was someone besides her, she knew she was alone with the exception of her 'I-don't-know-the-damned-way-out-of-here' so-called avatar that was supposedly trying to help her solve the sandy Labyrinth and was actually quite lost.

_'The cold will not last for long. Is there anything you wish to ask us, little one? We sense your need for us'_ another voice, more fatherly-like and more serious than the other asked her gently.

_'I do need you counseling, though in more ways than one, and I don't have the time. Which way shall I go? Right, middle or left?'_ Augustine asked silently, knowing that though she hadn't uttered a word, whoever was talking to her had gotten the message. She was getting very comfortable with the voices that she only could hear, and the things that laid locked inside her.

_'That's too easy, you ought to know on your own, mistress…'_ the first voice answered and was joined by the second, who added: _'Search within, follow your instinct, and you shall do fine'_

"Hey, Girl!!! Girl!!! You are starting to worry me! Answer, damn it!" Augustine heard in the distance and suddenly realized her eyes were closed, and that she had dropped the torch, which lay surprisingly (or magically), lit up still in the floor near her feet, but not near enough to burn her… No, the flame was never close enough to burn her, ever in her life. It seemed like an irony of destiny, a mockery that was useless, for she brushed it away. Nothing could hurt her.

She fluttered her eyes open and took a deep breath, realizing she had stopped breathing since the moment she had heard the first voice. She glanced around, not agitatedly but languidly and then her eyes came to rest upon the concerned and slightly puzzled face of her avatar and sighed, knowing full well what had happened.

"I spaced out for a minute, didn't I?" she asked, already knowing the answer, her voice calm and smooth, as if nothing rare had happened. When she saw the cat nod furiously she shrugged and replied that it 'happened from time to time' and that she shouldn't worry about it.

"It doesn't hurt" she assured the wide-eyed Blast before looking at the left passage and titling her head, a pensive look masking her features "Come on, let's go. I want to get out of here soon. The sent of death still lingers in the air, in spite of all the years that have passed since death came to claim a soul in this place"

Bast held back the numerous questions her mind came up with in that instant, and simply followed the mortal girl. For it was the Labyrinth of the Mind, after all, and stranger things had happened there before.

Without much ado both figures kept walking. The dangers they encountered were every bit the 'Indiana Jones' style Augustine had secretly expected, and she mused that having some kind of adoration for Harrison Ford turned into a dashing archeologist had finally paid off. One thing was for sure… she wasn't supposed to leave the tomb breathing and with her heart beating safe and sound in her chest, and the pyramid was doing everything possible to ensure that. But she knew of the danger before it happened, and it was the only flaw every trap had: if you know of it before it gets you, you can beat it. But sometimes she missed the warning, though she tried hard to concentrate, and that is how she got the new cut along her left palm.

"My hands ought to be doomed today" she muttered to herself as she looked warily at the chamber that was supposed to be the death chamber, where the once powerful ruler of the golden Kingdom of Egypt now lay in eternal rest. The minute she stepped into the spacious room the torches all over the walls lit up themselves, their flames of an eerie blue color that made the girl glance back and wish for a moment that she could retrace her steps and simply flee from that place. The reflex of the flames on the golden surface of all the treasures hoarded up in the Chamber hurt her eyes, and for a moment she closed them, using her hands to shield her face from the radiance of the gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, tigers eyes, quartz and other precious and semi-precious gemstones, that glittered and sparkled almost in harmony, as if dancing with their glow an unknown, perfectly practiced ballet. For a moment she stared at the golden plates, the statues of the so called The Ennead, a.k.a. The Nine Gods of Heliopolis, the nine great deities: Ra-Atum (a.k.a. Ra), Shu, Tefenet, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Isis, the evil Seth and his twin sister Nephthys, the various every-day utensils, the perfectly-woven rugs, carpets, dressed, the jewels and she felt as if she had been transported to the Ancient Egypt she had read from the pen and paper of Wilbur Smith.

"God, is so beautiful and so utterly disgusting at the same time…" she said aloud, her voice echoing in the empty and dark corridors of the pyramid "All this work, all this years of carrying stone in the merciless heat of the sun and the cruel tiredness of the night, all the carving, hammering, melting and molding, all the artists working their souls off, for the damned thing to be abandoned in the middle of nowhere, and with a curse powerful enough to keep everyone that sees the pyramid away from this! How selfish is that…?"

"It's not selfish" Bastet argued, having heard her "They did all this with pleasure. They loved their Pharaoh and wanted him to have all he could ever want in the afterworld. But he was cursed, by a man who envied his popularity… His very own brother. The Pharaoh loved him, and wanted him to be happy, but he had other intentions. The throne was his goal, and he obtained it through… Regicide, fratricide, call it whatever you want. There were dark forces involved in this, magic. That is why the pyramid was brought here. It was a battle between Fae, the ones who supported the Pharaoh and the ones who wanted the brother in the Throne. The Pharaoh, who was barely a child, was very fond of his magical friends, who were noblemen and noblewomen of a respectful Fae family, subjects of King Gareth himself. They gave him, on his twelfth birthday, a pet even, a magical one, to show their affection towards the intelligent and generous human that had captured their attention. But his bastard brother, of twenty years old who hadn't been recognized as the heir to the throne because of his condition as a 'child of love', and a group of Fae Lord who rivaled with the ones helping the Pharaoh decided to kill the boy, and use his brother to do so. They failed many times, but the kid finally was cursed, and the curse is still in force.

The Avatar paused because her voice was suddenly faltering. She remembered the kind, raven-haired, black-eyed kid that was once a great Pharaoh. He used to love to talk to her, and took great care of her, brushing her black fur and talking for her for hours and hours…

"How did his grave end up here, of all places?" Augustine asked quietly, sensing rather than seeing the sorrow that weighted heavily on the cat's soul. She knew that feeling all too well. The feeling of loss was always with her… Loss for people she didn't remember, loss for beings that had meant the world to her, that had loved her, but that she couldn't picture in her mind's inner eye. It was as if once they had been many… and now she was the only one left. She was…

The Lonely…That was her title, it was the answer to all her questions… But she was getting carried away yet again.

"The Fae lords who loved the little Pharaoh stood with him, during the curse. They brought his so called grave to their home, and they stayed with him, using their magic to keep him safe from the black magic that had been cast upon him. He was fine, he lived… or rather he existed, if not leaving at least undead. But then… The War happened… They went away… Under the power of iron they perished, fighting for what they believed" Blast paused, a faraway look settled in her feline features "The curse couldn't be fought with magic anymore, and took him, and the pyramid… And me. Out of pity, because no one else wanted it, King Gareth placed the Tomb here, in the Labyrinth, were it would be forever guarded, and would also serve a purpose. I've been here ever since. No visits, because only danger lies and lives in the Labyrinth of the mind… His Majesty still comes sometimes, though… But he is very busy, and most of times he talks telepathically. I guess that's why is nice to talk to someone you can look at the face, and that's why I'm so talkative and…"

The cat paused when she realize she was babbling, and promptly shut her mouth, seemingly embarrassed. But Augustine's curiosity had been awakened, and she had some questions to ask. They all seemed terribly painful to ask, so she settled for the one who sounded most neutral.

"Whatever happened to the ones who cursed the Pharaoh?

"They were killed in the War too… Murdered personally by…" Bast started saying with a smug smile when she was interrupted.

"King Gareth himself, because of Treason, betrayal to him and cold blooded murder" Augustine muttered, nodding absentmindedly "Of course, he asked for them not to be executed by anyone except him. Nobody questioned him, they never do…" she paused; her brow furrowing and her eyes pensive "It's all coming back…" she looked up and around the room, her eyes wide "This place… This world... Is making me wake up"

The Avatar's jaw dropped to the floor and she wondered if the girl was ever going to cease to surprise her. All she had said was true… King Gareth himself had murdered the traitorous Fae Nobles, with his very own sword with an iron tip. So much she knew, he had confessed it to her. The weight of murder didn't bother him apparently… His burden was one a thousand times more terrible.

"There is nothing here, and we mustn't linger here more than necessary. It is disrespectful somehow" she paused and frowned "Don't you think?"

"I know what you mean" the avatar replied, her whiskers moving when she frowned "Let's get the Hell out of here"

The two figures moved out of the death chamber but, as she set a foot out of that place, Augustine felt something unsettling and slithering past near her. And suddenly the feeling was everywhere, surrounding her, trapping her, choking the life out of her… Constricting her very soul.

"I don't feel very well…" she muttered suddenly, leaning against a golden wall of the hallway for support "Actually… the world is kind of spinning around me…"

She tripped and fell to the ground, her breathing erratic. Bastet immediately ran towards her and began to fuzz over her, all the way asking if she was okay every two seconds. The girl felt better after a couple of seconds, and eventually her legs stopped trembling and she was able to stand up again. She looked back at the chamber she had just left and could have sworn that she had felt as if evilness had flown from there.

_'That's what I get for helping the Drama Club so often… I'm starting to sound like a true Drama Queen'_ she chided herself, but she felt herself unable to look back at the chamber, and very eager to leave the dreadful monument to death once and for all.

"The exit is right at the end of this tunnel, of that I am sure" the avatar suddenly piped in, happily to finally be of any assistant. Well, you know the saying… Better late that never.

"Great, you finally know your way around this damn maze and it's when we are about to leave it" Augustine mumbled more to herself than to her companion, but her voice had a teasing tone that indicated she was merely joking. Then her voice grew dark and almost omniscient as she eyed the room in which the hall they had been walking in ended.

"It isn't supposed to be this easy" she said aloud, look around her. The torched had lit up as they walked by and then, when they passed them their fire had extinguished as if by some kind of spell… Of course, that was literally the case. But such an amount of magic that had been following them around without doing much save for lighting and putting out torches and sending random breezes of saffron-and-carbon-smelling air was kind of unsettling. 

"I know what you mean… And I think you are right… And, by the way, it's unusually hot in here, don't you think?" Bastet suddenly realized, frowning her pretty feline face. Augustine nodded and sniffed the air gingerly.

"It smells funny too" she whispered "Like if we were surrounded by a volcano or something. It smells like cinders, and the air is really stuffy"

She fanned her suddenly flushed face with her hands and took a breath full of steamy air, trying not to gag. It smelled and tasted horrible. Rancid was a good way to describe it, putrid being the second best. She frowned delicately and covered her nose with her two hands. The smell was slowly turning from tolerable to unbearable and she caught, feeling nauseous.

"It's like someone was breathing over my shoulder" Augustine muttered with a voice muffled by her hands. And suddenly she noticed that Blast was staring wide-eyed at her… Or rather at something behind her… Unsure of what to do she turned around, in slow motion as if she was in a movie and her eyes met the huge gaze of a pair of emerald-green eyes settled on a golden-scaled face.

"Of course, trust fairytale-like adventures to have the most known and abominable clichés" Augustine muttered darkly "Of course there had to be some horrible monster behind me"

The dragon was huge, so huge that he seemed to be a little crammed in the large room they were in. His eyes were a blazing green, the color of unmarred jade and his large wings where folded over. His scales were a sandy gold color, the same color of the blokes that formed the pyramid and he didn't seem to be in a very good mood. Not at all…

With a furious and reverberating roar the creature lounged at the defenseless mortal with spite shinning in his almost hypnotic eyes. Augustine sidestepped to try and avoid the weight of his paw, but it caught her, throwing her to the floor. And trapping her against it. She squealed, twisted and turned, but it was with no avail. She was totally, neatly and simply trapped.

And yet, though there was rage dancing like scorching flames in his eyes, there was also deep sadness in the beast's face.

  


"She is going to get freakin' eaten!" 

"Thank you so much for pointing that out, Dean!" muttered Justine darkly, her eyes shooting daggers at the N'Sync-look-alike teenager, who was staring at the large bubble with wide eyes and a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity and anticipation. The auburn-haired girl frowned, thinking that most of her fellow classmates were taking the things they saw in the bubble as things in a movie: impressive, yes, frightening, of course but also… unreal. As if they weren't happening to someone of flesh and blood… A fellow classmate, for Goodness's sake!

_'Is as if this place is having some strange effects on us… It's making us fell everything is a fantasy, a fairytale'_ she thought suddenly, looking at her friend with the help of the orb. She was in a precarious position, but her eyes barely held any fear at all. There was, though, curiosity and sympathy mixing inside the luminous icy depths.

"She sees something we don't" she finally understood. She always did, and Justine had the certainty that she would always do. Her very presence, though most of the time quiet and calm, spoke of the power of knowledge, the force that lay trickily calm and folded up inside the dainty body of the apparently weak and unimportant Augustine.

"Whatever it has that makes her what she is, is growing, or at least showing itself more and more as time flies by" she muttered to herself, not really conscious of the fact that someone was listening to her self-uttered ramblings. She turned then her eyes to the King that lay sprawled in his oak, throne-like chair, the lazy posture contrasting with the look of utter concentration that washed over his features as he regarded some papers and muttered things to himself.

"Why are you doing this to us?" she snapped all of a sudden, her nearly black eyes blazing with some kind of anger mixed with indignation and a little bit of fear. The King, who had been listening to that particular mortal's thoughts glanced at her and smiled, arching an eyebrow.

"Doing what to you, mortal? You have to be more specific"

His voice was close to taunting, but he was far too serious to taunt… Well, taunt Justine, at least. But whenever he was near the Labyrinthine traveler he felt the urge to mock her just for the fun of it. His thoughts wondered away then and he promptly brought himself back to reality and tried to deny to himself that he had been daydreaming.

"You took our sense of reality away! It is as if we felt that nothing that's happening is real! Stop doing it!" the girl shrieked "I don't want to feel nothing!"

Just as those words were screamed a wince of pain spread across the room. All the magical creatures assembled there shook their heads, muttering under their breath: 'Foolish mortal' over and over again like some sick mantra. Even Raphael let out a long, weary sigh and tsked.

"Humans are always so careless with their words" he lamented aloud, waving his tail instead of shaking his head. Gareth immediately fixed his cool and heated gaze on the girl and smiled a tad, almost as if he found the words she had so foolishly uttered amusing a little bit.

"You really wish that, mortal?" he asked, not really waiting for an answer. With a graceful wave of his hands a translucent grey crystal appeared floating just above his palm "Your wish is my command, then" Before anyone could even blink the crystal flew nimbly from His Majesty's hand towards Justine's chest and passed right through her flesh into her heart. For a moment the girl stood there, dumbfounded, looking at herself and expecting to have horns and a tail all of a sudden, but nothing happened. Then, as something inside her started beating near her own pounding heart she felt pain as she had never felt before. Ripping, numbing pain in certain parts of her body. One of her ankles, parts of her arms, the back of her head…

_Every single place where Augustine had injuries_

"What did you do to me?" she demanded to know as she rubbed her arms with her hands because something else was emanating from the second beat apart from pain… A slight, barely noticeable coolness.

"You told me you wanted to feel, so I made you feel… Everything you little friend there is feeling. Every cut, every bruise, every hardship will reflect itself in you. That crystal I tossed to you became a mirror of the beating heart of that mortal" the Dragon King replied lightly, turning his eyes towards the papers he had been reading "Enjoy your wish"

After that last statement one of his cynical, cold and almost lifeless laughs reverberated in the room. And, after that, there was silence.

  


Meanwhile in the pyramid the little 'dragon-appearing-out-of-nowhere' thingy wasn't going all that well. The beast had a horribly high level of strength and seemed to be driven by raw, unmarred hatred that kept him going… In other simpler and a lot worse-sounding words, he had gone totally berserk and he wasn't about to stop before killing someone…

}

Someone meaning Augustine, as it appeared. She was currently trapped, staring at the fiery eyes of her soon-to-be executor, and trying to figure out what it was that she saw there. It was something, obscured by the amber of his irises, hidden by the depth of his rage. But there was another thing reflected there, quite literally. A message, written above the exit doors, in ancient hieroglyphics. Another riddle perhaps? The secret of eternal joy in the Afterland, maybe, for it was were she was heading right now by the looks of the situation.

"Hate to be such a pain in the rear, Bast, but would you mind translating the message above the exit door before I get eaten? I wouldn't be able to appreciate it with my head bitten off, you see" she yelled sarcastically, twisting and twitching to escape the iron grip of her monumental captor. The avatar actually had the nerve to look offended for a moment before her feline eyes settled on the carved, ancient words. "Mourn or be mourned, bury or be buried. Give and you shall take" she translated with easiness, but the meaning was lost for her, and she showed that puzzlement on her frowning face "It doesn't make any sense. Is not a riddle, for there is no word to guess from that. It seems like…"

"The way to get out of here?" the red-head exclaimed, squirming out of her claw prison and crawling toward the black cat "That would be very useful, except for the fact that there is a gigantic lizard in between that door and me"

By that time the amount of sarcasm in her voice was so heavy it almost seemed to weight physically in the air. The girl was keeping her wits unusually about for a mortal who was fighting for her life against a colossal, medieval and not to mention magical beast that was supposed to exist in fairytale stories.

Then again, that _was_ a fairytale story. And she was a fairytale kind of gal.

"Why won't you tell me what you've wanted to say all along?!" she shouted finally, evading the dragon's swishing tail that seemed to want to crush her. It didn't help that the tail, instead of ending in the traditional triangle-shaped tip it ended in a bunch of pointy spikes "Why can't you just tell me?! I'll understand, I know I will!"

That sudden angry outburst seemed to paralyze the animal from head to toe. He looked, really looked at Augustine for the first time, its head cocked to a side, as if he found her unusual in some way. And that flickering light that had been forever dimming in his eyes since the moment he had appeared in the chamber relighted almost magically, giving his eyes and hypnotizing quality as they burned like emeralds on fire.

"I…" Augustine tiredly repeated, somewhat puzzled herself "I'll understand. I don't know how, but I will… I think I sort of do now, but I must be sure. Give me some time"

Her voice was soft but she wasn't amazed that the dragon had heard it. She had read in some book that they had a very keen ear and a quality to understand creatures with whom they felt some sort of affinity or kinship. And yes, there was something of that flowing between them. It was an ancient thing, something that seemed to connect her to almost everything in that Labyrinth, and dragons specially. She knew that because she was feeling it now… She had felt it with their King.

_'Better not to go there, it's dangerous territory'_ her mind warned her and she agreed wholeheartedly. The Dragon King was definitely dangerous territory.

"But back to the task at hand…" she muttered as she was trying to decipher what she felt but couldn't quite understand or put in words. She looked deeply into the dragon's twin jade pools that were his eyes and saw… Herself, as a child, crushed by something. And she remembered.

"Mourn or be mourned…" she whispered, looking at the funeral Chamber with sudden understanding "Bury or be buried… They didn't… He didn't… They just let him… As a curse… Oh, my" she gasped, realization hitting hard "they just let him wonder, dead-alive for God knows how long"

With those words the girl started running as if the Devil himself was on her heels. Actually the ones 'on her heels' so to speak were the Dragon and Bast, who was meowing every single insult she knew because that 'damned little mortal girl' wouldn't tell her what she was up to. But when the Avatar reached the girl's destination what saw puzzled her. Augustine was kneeling in front of the sarcophagus, with her eyes tightly shut and her head slightly bet in signal of respect, her hands palm against palm and raised to her chest till they almost touched her lips. She was muttering something and holding some kind of necklace made of black pearls arranged in little groups and that finished with a set of three pearls and a black cross. It was beautiful, and she looked so serene there, barely moving, her voice rhythmically whispering something with a certain feeling that could only be born from the deepest of fates...

It took the cat goddess little time to realize that the mortal was muttering something in Latin, which confused her even more. As she went on and on whispering she ran her fingers through the strange necklace, as if counting something. She was like that for apparently fifteen minutes, not caring as the thirteen-hour-clock chimed the time away, and only stood up after having said "Amen" aloud. She winced slightly when she caught sight of her sore knees, but she didn't complaint, just stared at the sarcophagus. Carefully and slowly she approached it and lightly touched it, her hands seeming to caress the painted face with the large, black eyes and the golden paint with fondness.

"I didn't know you when you were alive but… It doesn't take that to realize just how good a little boy you were, because the love your pet feels for you speaks for itself. What they did to you…" she paused and then took a deep breath to continue "was monstrous and heartless. And I'm sorry. I want to set you free, I prayed to do so and, though it wasn't in the Egyptian way I buried you in my own, me being a catholic. And now I am mourning for you, so please" she looked upwards, to whoever was listening "Go… Just go…"

Suddenly the ground started shaking beneath them and for a moment Augustine grasped the sarcophagus for support. She felt that weight, that heavy curtain of dark magic that had been drawn over the whole pyramid lift from it and then everything went still again. She spun around to face the sand dragon, her eyes searching his.

"Is he gone?" she asked breathlessly "Is he free?"

The creature nodded, a happy smile (or at least what Augustine thought to be a happy smile) grazing his muzzle. The girl let out a mouthful of air she hadn't realize she had been holding and smiled in relief.

"For a moment there I thought it wasn't going to work because I prayed in Latin instead of doing some ancient, incense-involving, ritualistic Egyptian thing, but I can practically feel all that heavy feeling of near doom lifting away"

At that point of the conversation Bast had enough of not knowing what the hell had happened and she made it very clear to everyone present (meaning she shout her lungs out) and she was promptly filled in by the huge creature through telepathy.

*As you well know, there was a curse hanging over this pyramid. The curse's deepest secret was that, once cursed and dead, the pharaoh couldn't rest in peace, but would remain dead-alive till a charitable soul appeared, prayed for him, begged for him, buried him and mourned him. Till then I swore to never let go of those people who dared enter this place and not show that kindness to my master*

His mind's voice, that echoed eerily inside the girl and the avatar, was filled with hatred and sadness that felt almost like a stab to one's spirit. Sometimes that happened with telepathy, the feeling expressed through it could touch a creature's soul.

But Augustine shook her head, this time her being the one puzzled. "I wasn't charitable. I only did what I had to in order to get out of the Pyramid. How's that charitable?"

If Augustine had one gift, one thing to be proud of, was her honesty and most of the time it had gotten her only in trouble, but she couldn't help but blurt out the question, which didn't seem as farfetched as she had thought. This time Bast was the one to enlighten the rest (and was quite proud of doing so) when she answered:

"You were praying a rosary back there, weren't you. That takes and awful amount of time, for I know that a rosary consists on fifty 'Ave Marias', ten 'Our Father' and then three 'Ave Marias' and then some other prayer that I can't recall. That's an awful amount of prayers, and it wasn't necessary, but you did it because you wanted it. You wasted precious time out of sheer generosity, because you _really_ wanted everything to work, because you wanted to set the boy's soul free. The pyramid itself was designed not only to measure intelligence, but charity as well. That is because there is no use in being intelligent without generosity or kindness of spirit. Intellect is nothing without those qualities, and if you hadn't had them you would have failed the Labyrinth, with or without this test. Congratulations, you are off the Hook for now"

"I wasn't being kind" the girl suddenly snapped, her voice like whip "I was being sympathetic. When I was a little girl, someone very dear to me died. And… before I was born, I lost a whole family"

She stopped them, the reality of what she had said hitting her. Why? Why she kept on saying things so cryptic that even she wasn't able to decipher them. Though she knew, she really knew, that they made sense, that they were truth and that she knew why, but couldn't bring herself to admit it. What was she hiding? She knew, and at the same time she didn't and that tearing-apart was killing her.

The Underground was killing her.

"Just forget it" she muttered under her breath, seeing Bast was about to shower her with questions yet again "Let's get out of her. Let's get out of this damned place before it's too late"

Without much ado the trio crossed the exit and stood under the clear, midnight sky. Fresh air was like a blessing after hours confined in such a little place with all the stuffy air and Augustine took a deep breath before turning towards her newfound friends.

"I guess I am on my own from here, right?" she whispered almost sadly "Thank you very much for everything. And Bast, treat Sandy very well, okay? He is such a nice little thing"

Sandy was, of course the pharaoh's dragon and he actually had a pretty complicated Egyptian name, so they had re-baptized him on the spot, so to speak. The Avatar snorted upon hearing the word little referred to the colossal monster that, minutes ago, had nothing else in his mind but to slaughter them.

"I'll take good care of that living-bonfire for you" she grudgingly muttered sighing "You just go and do what you must, whatever that is"

The girl looked at the black Egyptian cat and frowned, puzzled by the meaning of those last words. Bast just shook her head and attempted to dismiss the subject by moving a paw in the air.

"I'm an avatar, I know about things. What one must do may not be very velar the moment we ought to do it, that I can tell you. Now off with you! Time's running and you don't have much of it"

Without looking back, because doing so had proved to be a mistake in the Labyrinth the girl run off into the woods that stood in front of her, the deep silver-blue and almost black foliage looming over her menacingly. It was not an inviting sight at all, but she didn't expect less of the Labyrinth.

"I can breathe the wisdom that surrounds this forest…" she whispered to herself, closing her eyes "A pity that it's all going to be used against me"

With hesitation she gazed towards the path that twisted and turned inside the depths of the forest. She took a nervous step back and took a deep breath, not sure that she had the guts to confront such knowledge.

_'That's nonsense, dear. If our race ever had a strong point, that was our wisdom. That is why you were created for, after all'_ a voice muttered into her ear and she felt the wind around her push her into the dark woods. Feeling her heart drum in her ears she turned back, unaware that her eyes had flashed with an ice-blue, blinding light.

"The things that lie within are getting out of control" she said aloud, shaking her head "This is not going to end up well, no matter what the outcome might be"

  
  


* * *

Author's note: Well, well, I've returned (sound of drums, please) and I am SO sorry, really. I've been undergoing major changes in my life. I changed to a bilingual school and, though speaking or writing English has never been a problem of mine, it's hard to cope with everything. Besides the academic level of this school is way higher than what I'm used to (this school talked the IB exam of Cambridge and for the ones who know what I am talking about you can tell how hard it can be! Writing essays is killing me!

Besides I'm at that school from eight to four-thirty in the afternoon and, as it is really far away from my house I get home at six o'clock so I have less time to write and all. I know it's inexcusable my tardiness all the same, but at least I have an excuse, right?

For the ones who have stopped hating me, thank you very much and for the other a new chapter of The Night of the Blue Moon is coming (I swear) with a rather nice little twist (insert mad laughter here please). Well, gotta blaze here, guys. See you around (I promise).

You most sorry author (for the ones who give a damn),

Sabi


	7. Chapter Six: The Many reflections of a B...

Chapter Six: The Many reflections of a Broken Mirror, Part One

"Who's there???"

"Who's there… who's there… who's there…" came the mocking echoing reply to Augustine's somewhat sharp question. The girl turned around harshly and glared at whatever was behind her, but the creatures of the forest had the nagging habit of hiding in the shadow every time she tried to spot them.

"Filthy little bloody buggers" she muttered under her breath "I can't believe they live here"

There was too much wisdom bottled up in the huge extension of land. She breathed it and the scent was strangely familiar, yet entirely different to what she was comparing it too in her mind. The trees were filled with it too, and seemed almost alive, looming over her like omniscient oracles of doom, seeing tragedy in her near future.

"That's what I get after enjoying some innocent little myth books. I'm paranoiac, but a well-read paranoiac at least" she said to herself and then snorted gracefully, smiling a little "That would explain the voices in my head, on the other hand" 

Her ears perked up at the sound of howling in the far distance and she shivered, looking everywhere at once. Her heart was beating wildly and everything she felt told her that it was dangerous ground the one she was crossing. But she had really no choice. She felt tears prick at her eyes. It wasn't fair, she was risking her life, bruising her body for people that had, on top of it all, thrown her into the wild wisdom of a thinking maze.

"Why do those pretty eyes want to shed tears?" a voice asked from nowhere. Augustine turned again all of a sudden and got caught in a bindweed with thorns the seize of needles. She struggled out of the plant's tight grip only to find her clothes ruined. Well, not that they had been a Hell lot better seconds ago, but…

"Little Red Ridding Hood all alone in the forest at Night. That is not safe my dearest. There is a wolf near" the same voice that moments ago warned her seriously.

This time the girl detected the source of the voice. It was a sack of rags that resembled a person in some way, slumped against a tree with a bundle besides him and a hood that covered every aspect or feature of his face.

It was a beggar.

"Hi" she said softly, not knowing if she could trust that old man. Nothing was what it seemed in the Underground, she remembered that all too well. She took some steps towards the man's direction and frowned, expecting the reply.

"'Allo there, little girl" the man said, with a worn-out voice that characterized people of old age "How is it that such pretty little thing ended up in King Gareth's Wisdom Forest?" he asked then, titling his head to a side. His white hair was long and reached way past his shoulders and, as the girl observed, was all tangled and dirty. She took pity on him, all alone as he seemed there in the middle of only God knew where.

"I'm traversing the Labyrinth" she informed him, looking at her watch and frowning "And I don't have much time left. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be impolite, but I must go" she added, having forgotten for a moment that there was a thirteen hour limit. But the man seemed so disappointed all of a sudden that she felt guilty instantly.

"I… I'm sorry" she stammered, sighing "That was very unkind of me, but I didn't ask to be in this situation and many people are counting on me. Besides, the more I am here, the more danger of exposing" she explained carefully, wincing after hearing herself utter that last part. How could she be so careless as to say it aloud in front of a total stranger?

"What was that, little one?" the figure asked, apparently curious. The girl bit her lip out of habit, leaving it even redder than it had been before while she tried to get out of the situation she had gotten herself into.

"Forget I ever said anything" she muttered finally, sitting down next to him and titling her head as well "Why did you call me Little Red Riding Hood?" she asked suddenly, partially to divert the attention from her slip and partially because she was intrigued too "I'm not wearing anything red, I'm afraid" 

The old man laughed but it rather seemed like a muffled roar that startled the girl almost to the point of fear. She eyed him thoroughly but his appearance only spoke of calmness and kindness. Though she knew, she really did, that it may be a side of him, but only a side. That person could be just the opposite, she felt it in her bones.

His husky, almost throaty voice was somewhat mocking, but also gentle as he replied:

"Your hair, not too long and not too short, all loose though tangled a little seems so soft to the touch that it almost resembles a Hood. A deep blood red hood"

He had a way to sound feral and harmless at the same time and he was obviously as wise as the forest itself. Those words came out as an omen… An omen that many years later Augustine would remember and realize just how true and how warning it had really been. But that time she just thought it to be enigmatic and set it aside.

Before she could even noticed the old, strange man had reached up with a ragged-covered hand and grabbed a strand of hair between his fingers. His touch was not rude, though, but gentle and smooth, very delicate. She leaned over slightly without noticing and didn't even realize the true meaning of the man's words as he whispered: 

"I've been wanting to do that for a very, very long time"

He stroked her hair once more time, brushing her jaw slightly with his fingertips as he did so without the girl noticing. Finally he sighed and pulled his bundle of things in front of her.

"You have been very kind to me, stopping here and wasting precious time talking to me" he said "And I want to give you something in exchange. And I won't take a no for an answer"

He untied his pack and took something from it. It was a small, rounded crystal that reminded her of one of Gareth's own spheres, only smaller and of a milky-white colour that formed a mist that seemed concentrated inside the token. It was attached to a chain that seemed like a thick stream made out of white gold. It was breathtaking and, as soon as Augustine saw it, she shook her head.

"I… I can't accept it, I'm sorry. It's such a beautiful pendant…"

The old man chuckled. 

"It's not a pendant, little one. It's a flute. The moment you want it, it transforms itself into an elf-made flute of the finest quality. I don't know what, but you strike me as the flute type of girl. And I really want you to have it, please…" he paused "It was given to me by the muses. It's a kind of charm, you could say, and also an instrument. I hope to hear you play it some time" he added at last, fastening the chain around her neck. When he saw she was about to offer to play now he shook his head.

"Later, child… You'll play for me later. Promise it, if it makes you feel better" he proposed, a hint of something else than goodness in his voice. But the girl didn't notice and simply nodded.

"Okay, I promise" she said smiling and out of an impulse she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek "Thank you for everything, Wiseman" she whispered tenderly, her bright smile still lingering in her ruby-red lips. Then she turned towards the path and disappeared shortly in-between the massive trees and foliage. The so-called Wiseman stood there for some seconds and then disappeared in the midst of glitter and icy wind. Later the same man appeared on the Throne Room and walked towards one of the windows, his rags slowly falling from his body and disappearing or rather fading away before touching the floor. His long hair shortened itself till it only passed his shoulders and became a silvery-white hue. His clothes shimmered and changed to a royal attire of a pitch-black tone except his shirt that was silver. As he gazed at the Wise forest from his position, with one leg perched in the windowsill and the other one in the floor and one of his hands running through his hair his eyes changed back to their usual colors. Steel grey, blood red.

Gareth, King of the Dragons, sighed and touched one of his cheeks with a gloved hand, his look clouding slightly. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to remember the chill mixed with the thrill that had emanated from deep inside him as he had had her so close he could breathe in the puzzling smell that she gave off... She smelled like ice, like vanilla, like... Like midnight.

"She felt so deliciously cold..." he whispered lifting his eyelids slowly, growling low in his throat and then frowning and shaking his head, his unruly locks following the movement in a graceful dance of silver "And I feel like such a fool"

He strode to his throne hastily, whispering something in some unknown, ancient language of the Fae. Finally he slammed a fist against one of the throne's arms and growled again, but this time it was a sound born out of anger. It was a true, lupine growl the one that escaped from his throat, a wolfish howl almost.

"She won't get to me. The game will soon be over. She will loose, but not to the Labyrinth" he paused to create a crystal within his fingers "She will loose to me"

He smiled then, smashing the crystal into a wall and looking as it shattered into a million pieces. Constance was right beside him, but felt reluctant to go to him, since he emanated some kind of invisible force that was overwhelming her, feeling her with fear. She took several steps back and buried her face in her hands, shivering.

"Silently the senses..." the Damned muttered "You will be helpless... and that, my dear, it's a promise"

  


The weight of the pendant was a comfort for Augustine as she wandered in the midst of the darkness of the Forest. There were no strange creatures lurking in the corners and shadows of it in that part, but the feeling of total loneliness didn't quite catch up with her. She felt still that she wasn't alone, and she had learnt too much of the Underground and of herself to even consider for a moment she was being paranoid. Moonlight lit up the Shakespearian scene before her, creating a feeling of safeness in her, as if the Moon was watching over her. The voices in her head were quiet, but the presence never left her. She was the Lonely, but ironically she never seemed to be alone, and yet in a way she was. It was getting way too complicated.

But the only thing clear, the only truth in the middle of the chaos was one thing: She had to get out of there before it was _too late_.

"Too late for what is what I wonder" she said to herself. But it was a secret she knew she could unveil at her will, and she chose not to. Whatever it was, it was better off buried deep inside where it was. Nothing good could come out of bringing it to the light in the middle of the Labyrinth. Maybe later, when the whole ordeal was over, she would choose to know what the thing the lie within her was, but that was a thought far from her mind as she concentrated on the task at hand, literally speaking.

"Poor Labyrinthine traveler, lost in the midst of wisdom, faced with questions that require a high price to be answered"

Augustine turned around suddenly as a chorus of female voices resonated across the woods. She heard the faint rustle of cloth against grass but saw no movement.

"What is it that she dares hide from He who knows everything? Your secrets aren't welcome here, child of the mortals, so forfeit them before we make you"

The chorus of voices echoed mercilessly inside Augustine's ears, but she felt the things inside stiffen, showing resistance. It was a battle she was fighting without enough knowledge of who she was, and yet it was a battle were she held most of the power for the time being.

"You fights us! We, who have discovered the secrets of the great Oedipus and witnessed the fall of the Labdacid Lineage! We who have watched as Antigone hung herself and Haemon wept by her side! We who laughed upon the destruction of Troy and drove Helen crazy with guiltiness! You dare too much mortal... Give up! Give up before we force you to!"

Augustine took a step back as if stricken by the ferocity and the omen contained in those carefully uttered words. The voices were perfectly synchronized and sounded like some ominous chorus of angels from the Heavens. Take that back... Those terrifyingly beautiful voices seemed to hold the words that would bring her to her doom instead of the key to her redemption.

"Leave me be!" she shouted to whoever was listening and set off as quickly as her legs would carry her. But the voices were everywhere; the shadows almost crowded the forest now, making her heart thump wildly against her ribcage. Finally the abrupt and spontaneous race for her life came to an end when she tripped in a root of an old tree that had with time escaped the boundaries of the soil. She rolled in the floor, the world spinning around her and she suddenly saw, illuminated by the moonlight that she had earlier thought to be appealing, a mask covering half of the face of a man dressed in white robes with a red cloth that looked like some sort of scarf without the flecks falling over his shoulders and down his figure. The attire resembled that of a priest in Pentecostal and the mask was half a gold sun with sunbeams and everything. She recognized that mask. And she recognized all those people, women of more or less fifteen years old, wearing white robes and simple white tragedy masks that changed expression depending on what they were saying.

That was a Greek chorus and the man was Coryphaeus himself!

"As fair as Helen or even more so, and with the force of spirit of the one who was sister and daughter to Oedipus, such a fair maiden as tragic heroes have never seen" the Chorus Master complemented, but then his tone grew sad "And yet you dare defy Destiny and the Mightiness of the one who is cursed"

Immediately the girl felt like she was home. The Greek tragedies and myths had been her companions and her advisors, the source of her amusement before, and she knew them by heart. She felt capable of dealing with the blow the Labyrinth had sent her, for a change.

"I thought you serve the Master of Light, Apollo, and instead I find you in the midst of a place where he doesn't even dare show his luminous face, Coryphaeus. I am not a tragic hero, my destiny is not controlled by the Gods, and I haven't defied anyone who hadn't defied me first. So go back to your ancient country, you have nothing to do with me"

Her posture indicated clearly she didn't fear the ominous words that came out of the all-knowing, all-seeing Greek Chorus whose warnings always proved to be wise and accurate. The group of girls was obviously insulted by that mortal's audacity, but Coryphaeus just smiled behind his solar mask, amused by the Lady with hair like blood. He peered intently at the girl, sensing rather than seeing something that was not right. Something that was eluding him, and he wanted to know what that was. He had to make that mortal tell him. It was his job, his reason for being there. He helped troubled Labyrinthine travelers, but in the Underground everything had a price... Even that.

"The forest is a two bladed weapon and a golden cage, you stupid mortal!" the chorus roared "Ignorance is the only thing that can cut through the thick foliage of wisdom. You'll never find your way out of here otherwise!"

They were definitely mocking her then, Augustine noticed. But she knew what they wanted, and it wasn't worth what they were offering. On the other hand if they didn't tell her the way out of there all the wished-away were going to...

She didn't even want to complete that dreadful thought.

"The position you are in, mortal, is unfair, we concede you that, but it is the way of the Labyrinth"

She knew that, all too well by that. The way and will of the Labyrinth, that had almost gotten her killed more than once, as if the structure wanted her dead.

_'That's a reassuring thought'_ one of her voices muttered into her ear, rather amused. Augustine grunted mentally in response, but concentrated on the task at hand.

"Nothing is fair in this Hellish charade, that I am certainly well aware of. The game is not fair, life is not fair" she threw her arms in the air as if to say 'who cares' and continued in a calm, indifferent tone of voice "And yes, I am jaded, but I won't let that be used against me. I won't say it!"

Like a loyal guard she protected her secret from the praying ears of He who was always listening. That secret could never be uttered aloud in the Underground without having entire armies of darkness chasing after her in a second. She was such a rare thing... And, like all rare things, people would want to posses her. She didn't want that, she didn't want to fight them; to hide... she didn't want to struggle. She had always been Lonely, and that was the way life was supposed to be for her.

"It has been almost five thousand years" she whispered to herself and then looked at Coryphaeus "What makes you think, Oh great Greek, that you will make me say something that has been kept a secret since the day the lights in the sky dimmed?"

Too late the chorus realized she was playing their game and being as cryptic and as twisted as they where while speaking. But soon a chorus of laughs that rose from the group of teenagers that surrounded her made her feel a thousand times powerless. And it wasn't the inability to do something about the situation that she was in the thing that made her feel like that, but on the contrary it was the knowledge that she could end the charade in a second if she would only expose herself, her true self. But for the Love of the Underground, she would never do that.

"Come, come, mortal, confession will lighten your soul. Your secrets are bound to be with us, so don't resist. It's easier to just give in to the need"

And they were right. It was as if they were pulling the secret out of her mind by some sort of enchantment. She covered her ears to try and repel the enthralling command but the charm was spoken inside her mind a thousand times. She felt the air, and knew it was getting horribly chilly and felt as if something inside her tugged to be free.

"No!" she whispered "You don't know what you are doing!" she hissed then, clutching her head as her eyes started to burn. She knew she shouldn't open them. Her skin felt cool, almost frigid and it felt wonderful but her back was aching horribly. And, meanwhile, the chorus kept on pressing and pressing, rising their voices and looking at themselves cause they knew that no mortal could resist them that long.

"I...I..." she was stuttering, now knowing if she was going to tell them what they wanted to know or if she was going to show them, which was the same damn thing in the end. "You don't know what you are doing"

But the circle of females just pressed closer and closer to her, chanting words of doom as if they were some strange, saddening lullaby. And when she thought that nothing would prevent her secret from coming to the surface she parted her lips to say it... Just as a gust of wind warned her of the apparition of a group of nine ladies, dressed in Greek tunics of rich colours.

"People should just stop appearing out of nowhere" Augustine muttered through clenched teeth, wondering if the newcomers were friends or foes. But as she asked herself that one of the figures, with wave dirty blond hair and a rather willowy figure shown by her rather revealing tunic looked at her and winked, smiling but her smile faded a little as she saw her.

"Aw, she is a girl!" she said aloud "I was expecting some handsome mortal man!"

One of the other newcomers, all of them female, nudged the one who had complained aloud and chastised her.

"That was way out of line, Erato! Besides, we are not here so you can seduce poor mortal boys"

"Now that is the only thing this Forest was missing" Augustine whispered, half amused and half angered by the willowy woman's comment "The muses!"

And the muses they were, indeed. Proudly standing in front of the red-haired mortal were nine women. One, the one who had told the playful blond woman off was Calliope because she had on her hands a writing tablet. The one with the curves with a lyre in her hands was Erato, representing the love poetry while her sister represented the Epic poetry. Euterpe, muse of Music followed them, with her flute always near her and she was talking to a girl holding a celestial globe, who was Urania. There was a pair wearing tragic mask also but of a grayish colour. They were Melpomene (with a tragic mask symbolizing her domain, tragedy) and Thalia, wearing a comic mask representing her domain, Comedy. Further on the left one of the women was dancing, holding a lyre much like Erato's. Augustine deduced she was Terpsichore, the Muse of Dancing, and the one with the pensive look in her face must be Polyhimnia, the one who represented Sacred Poetry. The last one, holding a scroll that seemed never-ending was Clio, Muse of History.

"What is this, the annual Greek Mythology Meeting? Because if that's the case I don't want to be around when the most notorious Greek Characters start showing up" Augustine suddenly blurted out, shivering at the thought of encountering the Minotaur or a Gorgon.

"We are here because it's our right to protect you, and you called us, dear" Calliope explained softly, turning towards her "And you, Coryphaeus, better tell your chorus to hold their horses. We have jurisdiction over the girl and they can't ignore it"

"Prove it if you must and can then, Clio!" the group of girls said spitefully, their eyes glowing red under the marble-white masks.

"Euterpe is the one who has influenced her the most, so she is her protégée. The girl is a writer, Oh Superior Greek Chorus, so she is clearly ours"

Augustine's mind was in a turmoil. On the one hand, no one had ever fought for her and the feeling was strange, alien to her and, on the other hand, she was her own person, not something to people could claim they possessed.

"How do you know that at all? There is not a single piece of writing signed with my name, that I can assure you" she suddenly challenged, just to get a hold of the conversation. Euterpe smiled and shook her head, as if to say 'Ahhh, these mortals...' and then produced a crystal, of a milky-white colour that, with a puff, became a sheet of paper, with some words scribbled on it. Augustine's eyes widened when she recognized her signature, with her alias name, at the bottom of the page.

"You can't really hide yourself, Sabina" she said with a little triumphant smile, while the girl covered her own mouth, as if that could make the spoken words disappear from everybody's mind "Whatever your name is, I've seen you grow and flourish. Can't really fool me then. You are one of my strongest protégées, so that is why I came here for help. I sensed your anguish. You were afraid"

"Of course I was. They were about to make me say something that would have had too many consequences" she replied cryptically, her eyes flashing icy blue at the member of the chorus, who flinched. Suddenly the girl had changed, something had flashed across her face for a couple of seconds, but it was promptly gone by the time they had realized it was there.

Fortunately for her nobody replied or made any comment about what she had said, and she was able to breathe normally again. Another faux pass, she noticed. The truth was just dying to come out.

"Tell her the way to get out of here, and for free" Melpomene demanded in a melancholic tone, as she said all things. The members of the chorus actually sneered at the Muses, looking at them with narrowed eyes and then looked at Coryphaeus, looking for advice.

"They are far stronger than we are. And they are fulfilling a wish, which is something allowed in case the Labyrinthine traveler is one of their protégées, so we can't do anything about it" he told them, actually quite relieved he didn't have to torment the girl anymore. He felt it would have been for the worst to pull the secret out of her.

"But... Master Coryphaeus!!!" the group of teenagers whinnied in unison, not wanting to give in to the muses at all "There must be a way!"

The Chorus Master shook his head, though he could think on one or two ways, and smiled at the muses, as did the chorus once they got into their heads that they had to tell the mortal how to get out of there but seeing her try could be a Hell lot of fun as well.

"We'll tell then" they agreed with voice dripping with false sweetness "The task for you to complete, mortal, is to prove yourself to be wiser than wisdom"

Augustine's look there was priceless. Mouth opened ajar, eyes as wide as saucers, all the colour draining from her face she stood speechless for a couple of seconds while the Muses winced inwardly upon hearing what she would have to do.

"And how the Hell am I supposed to do that???" she blurted out when she found again her capacity to link letters into words and words into sentences. For the first time she really was doubting her ability to make it to the castle in Lumiara fast enough and the Chorus, seeing that, smiled even more as they looked at one another with smugness written all over their faces. Euterpe and Clio frowned at that.

"You have to formulate the forest a question to which wisdom does not have the answer to" the Chorus chorused (duh!).

At that moment something clicked, something that had been retrained far too long and now was like a powerful force coursing through the red-head's veins, overtaking her. They had tampered with it too much, teased it and endangered it and now what she really was claimed a way to get back for everything. And she was only too glad to be herself, her true self, if only for some minutes. She rose her eyes to the skies, as if to seek inspiration or to talk to the trees themselves and seeing the stars shining strongly, slightly invisible because of the leafy foliage of the forest, shining for her, she gained all the courage she needed to voice her question.

"If you have all he questions as well as all the answers, Oh Mighty one who now rises imposing before me, tell me... What's the void or emptiness that the more you fill the bigger it gets?"

Her semblance gave nothing away. She stood calm, her full if petit height, chin up and eyes looking everywhere but devoid of all expression, though she wasn't breathing also, expectant. Her words echoed in the vastness of the woods for a couple of seconds and silence fell upon everyone present. They looked at each other, unsure of the near future, of the events that were going to decide if the quest was over, or if she was still in the fight. At last a cried that was born out of sheer agony could be heard all over the forest and suddenly the path was clear again, and this time there was an exit near.

"You have challenged wisdom and beaten it" observed Clio with a smile of sheer pride and astonishment gracing her face "That is not something that usually happens"

The chorus was speechless, their masks reflecting an expression of utter astonishment that seemed almost comical and they looked at each other, each of them expecting the other to be able to explain what had happened before their very eyes.

"These woods have seen more knowledge than we have" they finally said "They were blessed by the Gods and a mere mortal can't escape them! That is not possible!!! We demand an explanation"

"What do you mean?" Augustine asked, her tone calm and serene. She never lost her composure, she never flinched and her eyes, as hard as shards of ice, never blinked.

"You must have cheated!!!" the chorus girls screeched, fancy rimes long forgotten "Tell us what the answer to your question is if you were telling the truth!!!"

They were almost hysterical now and some of the muses (mainly Terpsichore, Erato and Thalia) were having the time of their lives laughing at their expense, covering their mouth with both hands and trying to stifle their giggles. Euterpe, Clio and Urania looked at them disapprovingly, though they were smiling too. Augustine flashed the enraged chorus an innocent smile and replied without further ado:

"Curiosity... It's the void that the more you feed the bigger it gets"

The Chorus girls looked at themselves, confusion written plain across their features before their screeching and protesting started again, realizing the girl was right. Coryphaeus shook his head and sighed.

"They will recover, my fair heroine, don't worry about that" he assured Augustine with a smile "Now I must bid farewell to you all, though I'll keep an eye on your progress, Labyrinthine traveler and to aid you I'll give you this" he paused for dramatic purposes as a bundle wrapped in red silk cloth appeared in his hands and then he handed it to her "I have business to do before Apollo's chariot crosses the midnight sky. Too many legends to tell... to many tragic heroes whose lives will be ruined..."

He smiled darkly and the mortal forced herself to remember that in the Labyrinth even the purest of creatures had a dark side even if they didn't show it most of the time. Then they disappeared in a puff of smoke and a flash of light.

"Nice fellow" Augustine commented truthfully as she eyed the bundle in her arms wearily "Now let's get the Hell out of here. Any suggestion as where to go from here?"

Euterpe suggested to take the shortcut through the coliseum, though the girl didn't really like the sound of that.

'Considering past experiences in the Labyrinth that could end really bad' she thought 'With my luck I will end up as meat for lions. And I'm really tired. I don't think and get miraculously out of a problem like that'

But, once she spotted it, she forgot all rational thought. The marble-built structure raised imposingly in front of her, the grayish walls uncorrupted by the passing of time, showing sometimes chiseled scenes of long-forgotten combats, of dangers that had laid inside the rounded structure centuries ago, in the days were everybody settled for "bread and circus". She suddenly felt as if she had been tossed back into the Roman Ages, feeling awkward and plain in her plaited skirt and white shirt. She noticed then that the said garments were quite ruined so she decided to cover herself with the cloth so she unwrapped the chorus Master's present. To her own surprise she found part of the gift was a grey cloak and...

"Why would he give this to me...?" she wondered as her eyes widened at the sight of the object in question as she picked it up, taking care no one saw what it was "He must know I would never...!"

All thoughts about dressing more fitting to the settings vanished from her mind as she wrapped the blasted thing with the cloak, shaking her head.

"Come, Augustine!!!" Erato screamed, her generally-sweet voice that sounded at that moment extremely high-pitched. The girl shook her head again and ran to were the muses stood, the dreaded item tucked safely under the folds of the grey cloak.

  


"This can't be"

"'Tis impossible!" someone agreed.

"Totally outrageous!" a third person joined the conversation. The Throne Room of the Castle in the middle of Lumiara, the Dragon Kingdom's capital city, was brimming with commentaries such as those. Vampires flashed their fangs indignantly, while dragons of all kinds roared and huffed, making tiny- or nor so tiny- clouds of smoke in the air. Centaurs stomped their hooves against the stone floor, while a couple of hobgoblins laughed at everyone, finding mirth in the rest of the magical creature's state of mind. They were promptly quieted by the murderous look of the Monarch of the Castle. Gareth growled once, loud enough to be heard amidst the chattering and the shouting, and everyone stopped dead in their tracks, shutting up. He was as tense as an animal, feeling something pressing against his chest, crying to be let free. He glanced at the window, where a half-moon shone proudly and shook his head.

"It's not a full moon night..." he whispered fiercely, clutching his chest and closing his eyes, panting "It is not your time to come out!"

He didn't understand it; his heart-beast was molesting him as it had never done before. He could control it, master it, except in full moon nights, when the best was finally free to kill and slaughter. But it was not one of those nights, and yet he was having a hard time controlling the monster inside him. His wild side. His eyes were already changing, his pupils becoming elliptic instead of rounded, like animal-like slits, his voice gruff, hoarse, husky...

"_Dirashki aniala... sen_*" he muttered in an ancient Fae language... The dialect of a special race. He sat up suddenly, letting the chair fall to the floor with a loud thud and then approached the crystal orb levitating in the middle of the room. Augustine appeared there, all silent and suddenly demure and powerless again, as mysterious as he had first met her... Or even more so.

"I should have suspected her to be the author of the pages I read..." he cursed silently, remembering how close he had been to finding out her innermost secret "But I had to give her that necklace, and the muses sensed her through it"

The old ragged-clothed man had been a test, one of the many of the Labyrinth, and she has past it. He had been obliged to reward her... But he had gotten something out of that bargain. Something she had unwittingly given him. He made a swift movement with his wrist and a tiny, silvery spark appeared floating a few inches above his leather-clad palm.

"A maiden's promise, sprung out of the depths of her very innocence" he mused aloud, watching the tiny spark glow lightly, casting an eerie light to his features, making him look even paler than he already was. He bared his teeth in a feral smile and his eyes changed again, his pupils turning into slits once again, his fangs gleaming in the darkness. And all the while, unaware of just how foolish she had been, a tiny little girl, too scrawny and too dirty to be called even remotely pretty stared transfixed at the sight before her eyes, ignorant of the prying eyes all over her body.

  
  


*Translation = It's not your time... yet.

  


* * *

Author's note: Well, I posted and a long chappie too! I wanted more things to happen in this chapter, but before I knew it I had eleven pages and I thought it wouldn't do to post more than that... I find that very, very long chapters bore me, as well as very short ones. Well, I hope this one doesn't bore you. And for the ones thinking: 'She should write more, she is on holidays' let me remind you that I live in Argentina, in the other hemisphere and, therefore, its winter here and I've got classes, unlike you (that is sooooo not fair!). Anyway I hope to here from all of you soon. Review people, please, pretty please? Remember I am stuck here with school while you are all free and in holidays!!! Don't forget a fellow comrade in disgrace!

By the way, ever since last Tuesday (7/29/03) I am officially seventeen years old!!! Don't you find me more mature? My muse says it's as if I was going backwards or something, but don't mind her, she is just jealous 'cause I included the famous Greek muses in this chapter instead of her. Well, they are a lot nicer (Sabina warns her muse not to get close to her with that frying pan). See you soon! Best wishes,

Sabi (a.k.a. the girl trapped in school!)


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